ENERGY company IGas has announced it will appeal against the council’s decision to refuse it permission to test for shale gas in Ellesmere Port.

The firm had wanted to flow test its Portside well, to find out whether the rock formations in the area produce gas or oil.

But councillors voted overwhelmingly to refuse the plans at a meeting on January 25 this year.

In a statement released today (Thursday, July 26), the firm said: “IGas today announces that it has now lodged an appeal against the decision made by Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Planning and Licensing Committee, on 25th January 2018, to refuse planning consent for routine tests on a rock formation encountered in the Ellesmere Port-1 well, drilled in late 2014.”

The move has come as no shock to anti-fracking campaigners who have vowed to maintain their opposition to plans for further drilling.

Cllr Matt Bryan, a prominent environmental campaigner in the city, told The Standard: “This was totally expected and we are ready to fight it.

“We are used to IGas’s disdain for local communities.”

Asked what campaigners might do if the appeal is successful, he added: “We will just take every step in the campaign as it comes. Local people have never been more organised and aware of the dangers of fracking and object to this extreme form of energy production."

The original application, which had been recommended for approval, made no reference to fracking.

But campaigners said the well test would help pave the way for the controversial process, which involves fracturing underground rocks to release gas, to take place in the area.

Members of the Frack Free Dee Coalition had staged a peaceful protest and march prior to the planning meeting, held at Chester's HQ building in January.

In a previous interview with this newspaper, IGas’s well engineering director Kris Bone said: “I think there is a lot of misinformation that we’re going to do some hydraulic fracturing there. We’re not. There’s no hydraulic fracturing planned at that site. It’s a normal well test.

“We’ll run into an already drilled well, we’ll perforate a zone of interest and we’ll see whether it flows gas or oil.”