Who's Surrey Now? Finch Comes Home to Roost

The Supreme Court decision in Finch v. Surrey County Council has already had a negative impact on the operation of two more fossil fuel projects. The one which has received the most attention is the West Cumbria Coal Mine, the less well-known one is Egdon Resources' proposed Biscathorpe oil drilling in Lincolnshire.

Both had received planning permission after lengthy battles, and both were in the process of judicial review following applications from local campaign groups.

Neither however had considered the climate change impacts of the end use of the extracted fossil fuel in their Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), and so both very clearly fell foul of the ruling in Finch that these 'downstream' impacts needed to be worked out and assessed at the planning stage.

Though both were announced yesterday, 11th July, it was one of the last acts in government of the former SoS for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, to throw in the towel on Biscathorpe, and one of the first of his successor, Angela Rayner, to do the same with West Cumbria.

One suspects that Ms Rayner perhaps did so with less reluctance than her predecessor given her party's long-standing opposition to the project, though the folk of Whitehaven who were looking forward to (a claimed) 1,500 skilled jobs are likely to be less enthused.

Whilst technically both decisions have now to be re-determined it is difficult to see now how either project could go ahead.

First, they would both have to prepare new EIAs incorporating the downstream assessment and as the existing EIAs for both are likely to be out of date in key respects because of the length of the process, they are not far off being back at the beginning.

Secondly, the new government is of course against new oil drilling and as mentioned, it has long opposed the new coal mine. It would, to say the least, be optimistic for the developers to revive either application against such background. It remains to be seen how much less oil and coal is burned as a result.

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