Outline planning permission for the ESS was conditionally granted by Selby District Council on 14 September 2005.

[8] In January 2009, Chinese national Chen Cai Guan was tortured and beaten to death in a warehouse on an Elvington Industrial Estate, just outside York.

[9] The two men responsible for the murder Huang Bao Lung and Zhang Zhouli both admitted links to the 14K Triads, a Hong Kong based criminal gang.

Huang and Zhang rented the warehouse as part of a nationwide Cannabis factory operation, using a food storage business as a front.

When the North Yorkshire Police raided the facility in Elvington shortly after the murder took place, they seized 1,500 Cannabis plants and arrested the suspects, also finding traces of the victim's blood that they had failed to cover up.