UPDATE: The Planning & Regulatory Committee REFUSED this proposal.
Surrey County Council’s Planning & Regulatory Committee will discuss IGas’s application for installation of a steam methane reformation unit for the production of hydrogen from methane extracted from the Albury wellsite at their meeting on 29 March 2023.
The Council’s Planning Development Manager has recommended the plans be REFUSED – on grounds including harm to the Green Belt and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and failure to demonstrate that the development would not result in an unacceptable risk to protected lichen habitats.
The Planning Development Manager’s report discusses climate impacts. It quotes the Council’s Greener Futures team, who stated in their representation that without carbon capture, the proposal would generate greenhouse gas emissions that are significant and on this basis the proposal should be refused.
The Weald Action Group welcomes the planning officers’ recommendation that the proposal be refused. We are pleased that the Surrey Greener Futures team confirmed that the IGas claim that this proposal was low carbon is incorrect. The production of “grey” hydrogen uses a chemical reaction that produces additional amounts of carbon dioxide, and IGas had discounted these in their application. The planners also confirmed our point that national policies do not support the production of high-carbon hydrogen.
Read the report by Surrey’s Planning Development Manager
Read the Weald Action Group’s objection to this proposa;: Say no to grey hydrogen production at Albury
Read a briefing by the Weald Action Group on IGas’s hydrogen plans for Albury and Bletchingley: Igas hydrogen proposal