This wasn’t a single victory or a single strategy. It was nearly a decade of sustained, multi-pronged resistance that eventually made continuing too difficult and too expensive for Europa Oil & Gas to justify.
The foundations: legal challenge (2009-2015)
The Leith Hill Action Group was formed in March 2009 when Europa first applied for permission to drill on Leith Hill. What followed was six years of relentless legal and planning challenges that laid the groundwork for everything that came after.
May 2011: After LHAG and supporters submitted over 2,000 letters of objection, Surrey County Council’s Planning and Regulatory Committee overturned their own officers’ recommendation and refused Europa’s planning application.
Europa appealed.
July 2012: The first Public Inquiry found against Europa. They’d lost again.
Europa challenged that decision in the High Court.
July 2013: Europa won in the High Court, quashing the Inspector’s decision from the first Public Inquiry. LHAG took the case to the Court of Appeal as third defendants, represented by a barrister and armed with witness statements.
The Court of Appeal found against LHAG.
April-May 2015: A second Public Inquiry was held with a different Planning Inspector. This time, after seven days of evidence, the Inspector found in favour of Europa.
But here’s what mattered: the permission came loaded with 23 planning conditions and a three-year deadline to commence work or the permission would expire. Those conditions weren’t token requirements – they were detailed, technical obligations that LHAG scrutinised at every stage.
By the time the second inquiry concluded, LHAG had raised £100,000 from individual donors, families, companies and Mole Valley District Council. They’d fought Europa through planning committees, two public inquiries, the High Court, and the Court of Appeal. They’d forced Europa to spend years and enormous resources just to get permission hedged with conditions and time limits.
The formal legal battle had been lost. But the constraints it created became critical.
Running down the clock: direct action (2016-2018)
In early 2016, with Europa’s three-year planning window ticking down, protectors established a camp on the proposed drill site at Bury Hill Wood. The strategy was straightforward: make it as difficult and expensive as possible for Europa to meet those 23 planning conditions before their permission expired.
Building the cathedral
What started as basic shelter evolved into something more substantial. After a conversation in a Dorking pub about what the camp needed, an articulated lorry full of donated pallets appeared three days later. The protectors built what became known as the “pallet cathedral” – a fortified structure that would require serious effort to dismantle.
Beneath the surface, tunnels were dug. At its peak, up to 30 people occupied the site, maintaining a 24-hour presence that made it impossible for Europa to simply move onto the land and begin work.
The eviction: June 2017
Bailiffs moved in at first light. It took specialist tunnelling experts – the same team that had removed Swampy from the A30 tunnels in Devon two decades earlier – days to extract protesters from what they described as the most complex tunnel system they’d encountered since the 1990s.
Peter Faulding, leading the operation, called the tunnels “a death trap” and admitted he hadn’t seen anything like it in years. Every hour the operation took cost Europa money. Every news report of specialists extracting protesters from elaborate tunnels kept the story visible.
The camp moved across the road and continued.
Why it worked
The direct action wasn’t trying to win in court or change planning law. It was exploiting the constraints the legal battle had created. Europa had three years to meet 23 conditions and commence drilling. Every day the camp existed made meeting those conditions harder. Every planning submission LHAG continued to scrutinise added delay. Every month that passed brought Europa closer to their deadline.
The combination was lethal: legal constraints plus physical occupation plus sustained public pressure plus mounting costs plus time running out.
The pressure never stopped
While the legal challenges and direct action grabbed headlines, thousands of people maintained pressure in less visible ways:
- Continued objections to every new planning submission
- Scrutiny of Europa’s attempts to meet the 23 conditions
- Attendance at council meetings
- Media attention that kept the issue alive
- Financial support for both LHAG and the camp
- The demonstration in 2016 where hundreds of people gathered on Leith Hill, forming a human heart visible from the air
This wasn’t a handful of activists against a corporation. It was an entire community refusing to give up.
September 2018: Europa withdrew
After years of legal battles, millions in costs, a fortified protest camp, specialist eviction operations, relocated protesters who wouldn’t leave, endless planning scrutiny, and mounting public pressure, Europa Oil & Gas announced they would no longer pursue the Bury Hill Wood site. All planning applications were withdrawn.
By Europa’s own admission in a financial news interview (since removed from YouTube), the project had cost them at least £3 million. For a prospect with less than a 30% chance of finding oil that would supply 0.014% of UK energy demand over 25 years, the mathematics had stopped working.
In October 2020, UK Oil & Gas (who had taken over from Europa) formally relinquished the exploration licence. It was finally, completely over.
The lessons
Legal action alone wasn’t enough. LHAG fought through every available channel for six years and lost the final Public Inquiry. But those six years created delays, costs, conditions, and a deadline that became exploitable.
Direct action alone wasn’t enough. The camp couldn’t have stopped Europa in court or changed planning law. But it could make meeting planning conditions impossible within the deadline the legal process had imposed.
Community support made both possible. The £100,000 LHAG raised, the lorry full of pallets that appeared for the camp, the 2,000+ objection letters, the hundreds of people at demonstrations – none of this happens without a community that refuses to accept the unacceptable.
Sustained pressure over time works. This took nearly a decade. People kept going through defeats, through Europa winning planning permission, through the first camp being evicted. They didn’t stop.
Making it expensive matters. £3 million for a prospect that might produce nothing. Europa had to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously, in multiple venues, over years. Eventually the costs – financial, reputational, operational – outweighed any potential reward.
The woods are still there. The water supply is safe. The ancient sunken lanes remain undamaged. An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty wasn’t industrialised for a fraction of a percent of UK energy demand.
It’s not a story about one heroic action or one brilliant legal strategy. It’s a story about what happens when a community decides something matters enough to fight for it on every front available, for as long as it takes.
Save Leith Hill 