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London developer discovers multi-billion pound oil reserves in Surrey

Oil has been discovered at a site in Horse Hill, near Horely, just a few miles from Gatwick Airport by London firm Horse Hill Developments.

Frack Free Surrey held a protest meeting on Sunday over fears the company may use fracking on the site. The company has guaranteed that the fracking technique will not be used.

Geologists have suggested that the oil and gas reserves at Horse Hill site could be worth about £2bn, with production beginning in about two years, Mr Lenigas said.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique designed to recover gas and oil from shale rock. Opponents say the fracking process can cause small earth tremors.

Horse Hill Developments is linked to Angus Energy, which already operates wells at Brockham and Lidsey in West Sussex.

Resident Christopher Lowe said: “Fracking is a potentially dangerous process to people’s health and the consequences are not fully understood.

“If it’s a single well, like Brockham, then there is not a problem In the end they will leave a nodding donkey which you won’t see and there will be a tanker or two, or half a dozen a week, which is not a problem.”

“We could get another [well] in two years time, and this is a prospect which does worry people.”

David Lenigas chairman of Horse Hill Developments, said: “I’m a land owner and farm owner and I wouldn’t want fracking on my land and I certainly wouldn’t be doing fracking in Horley.

“I have stated publicly that there will be no fracking at the Horse Hill site.”

“I think the concept of a nodding donkey every mile is not the reality of this project.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .