R (Frack Free Balcombe Residents Association) v West Sussex CC [2014] EWHC 4108 (Admin) is a UK enterprise law case, concerning oil and gas.

The FFBRA claimed the council’s planning officer wrongly advised its committee that (1) it should leave pollution control, air emissions and ‘well integrity’ to the EA, HSE, etc.

(2) Public Health England and HSE had said a well would be sound (3) Cuadrilla’s past breaches of planning conditions, residents objections and costs of protests were all irrelevant when they were.

There was no evidence that the planning officer had misled the council committee about PHE’s views on sulphur dioxide emissions into the air, produced by the flare.

Contrary to the way the case was first argued by Mr Wolfe, PHE never asked at any stage for monitoring of sulphur dioxide within the flare.

The fact is that at all times the EA have agreed with PHE that there should be air quality monitoring, which among other matters will address the emission of sulphur dioxide and other chemicals which will be produced by the flare.

So far as Ground 1 is concerned, it essentially comes down to Mr Wolfe arguing that it is wrong for a planning authority to consider that it can assume that environmental controls would be properly applied.

He contends that it should not make the assumption if it has material placed before it which raises issues which could persuade the Planning Committee that such controls would not exist or would not be properly applied.

In my judgment what happened here was that the committee accepted its officer's advice that it had sufficient information to determine the application, and that it should and could assume that the matters could be dealt with by the EA and by the HSE.

Indeed, the existence of the statutory regimes applied by the HSE, the EA and the DECC shows that there are other mechanisms for dealing with the very proper concerns which the Claimant's members have about the effects on the environment.

Given the terms of national policy advice, and its endorsement by the Courts, and the fact that there was ample material before the Committee on the topic, nothing turns in this case on the choice of verb.

They are an attempt to dress up as a challenge in law what is actually a merits argument that the WSCC Committee should have accepted that it should not regard the matters as being capable of being dealt with by HSE and EA.

The Committee dealt with the issue carefully, and addressed the points of concern about noise and traffic routing, which had led to the breaches of the conditions under the earlier permission.

The Minutes at paragraphs 16-33 show that the Committee gave very full consideration to the issues of noise monitoring and HGV movements, which were actually the subject matter of the conditions of the previous permission which had been breached.

He placed particular emphasis on R v Chief Constable of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, ex p Central Electricity Generating Board [1981] 3 All ER 826, [1982] QB 458.

English law upholds to the full the right of people to demonstrate and to make their views known so long as all is done peaceably and in good order (see Hubbard v Pitt [1975] 3 All ER 1, [1976] QB 142).

'Lawton LJ asked ([1981] 3 All ER 826 at 834, [1982] QB 458 at 472–473): '… can those who disapprove of the exercise by a statutory body of statutory powers frustrate their exercise on private property by adopting unlawful means, not involving violence, such as lying down in front of moving vehicles, chaining themselves to equipment and sitting down where work has to be done.

'Templeman LJ agreed, adding ([1981] 3 All ER 826 at 840, [1982] QB 458 at 481): '… the powers of the police and the board are adequate to ensure that the law prevails.

In the result the court refused the board's application for an order of mandamus requiring the chief constable to instruct his officers to remove the objectors.

In our judgment, that body of authority, taken as a whole, provides singularly little support for the contentions advanced by those now seeking to bar the livestock trade from their ports.

If we are right in holding in each case that the port authority enjoys no discretion in the matter, then plainly there presently exists no such emergency as could begin to justify non-compliance with their duty to accept this lawful trade; they would have no defence of necessity.

Even, however, if the port authorities are to be regarded as having a discretion to determine which legal trades to handle, then in our judgment they could not properly exercise it here in favour of this ban.

One thread runs consistently throughout all the case law: the recognition that public authorities must beware of surrendering to the dictates of unlawful pressure groups.

Tempting though it may sometimes be for public authorities to yield too readily to threats of disruption, they must expect the courts to review any such decision with particular rigour—this is not an area where they can be permitted a wide measure of discretion.

In my judgment, had it taken County Councillor Mullins' original argument into account, WSCC would have had regard to an immaterial consideration and would have acted unlawfully.Cuadrilla announced that it was dropping their fracking operation, stating that this was a decision based on the rocks having natural fractures.