Planning at Albury 2

Thursday February 11th

As a member of the County Planning & Regulatory Committee, I found myself in Albury this week being shown around a drilling rig!

We were there as part of a tour of upcoming cases to be heard at next week's planning committee and were there to get a grip of the planning concerns raised by local Surrey residents. On the basis that I'd never been anywhere near a drilling rig before - let alone one in Surrey - I found the visit to be most interesting.

What I found particularly interesting for example was that because of restrictive planning laws, they are actually drilling horizontally for approximately one mile and at a depth of 1500 ft (and dropping) to reach oil and gas beneath Blackheath Common. So they've had to design a way to reach it - and recover it - from Albury, with a considerable number of 40ft drill collars to make a long enough drill to get there.
Fascinating stuff to a layman like I.