Seismic exploration: update

In February this year, I liaised between parish councils and KCC concerning the seismic exploration work being carried out in Darent Valley by Tesla Exploration on behalf of Northdown Energy (post of 9 March). Initial contact had been made with KCC (as well as Bromley Borough Council) in January.

This project was treated as permitted development rather than something that required planning permission, since Northdown already has a Petroleum Exploration and Development License (PEDL) from the Department of Energy and Climate Change that covers a large part of the Sevenoaks area (you can see a map here. To challenge this and force an application for planning permission, Kent County Council would have had to issue a so-called Article 7 Direction, which there were no good grounds to do.

The survey work, which essentially involved lorries travelling around the area and undertaking a two-dimensional (2D) seismic survey (through emission of vibrations) took place in May. The areas of Darent Valley covered were Badgers Mount and the Lullingstone part of Eynsford; Shoreham was on the original route but this was not carried out because of the narrowness of the roads and the possible impact on utilities.

I recently made some enquiries as to the outcomes of the survey. I understand that specialists at Northdown are still looking at the data, and that this is likely to be a lengthy process, matching the findings with geological and other information from the area. At present, there are no plans to undertake further exploration and, if this did take place, KCC would be notified. Were the eventual findings to indicate that there were exploitable hydrocarbons, then the next stage – probably drilling an exploratory borehole – would require planning permission, including extensive assessments of environmental and other impacts.

I will continue to monitor the situation and provide further updates if and when there is new information.