'Jog On Egdon' -- runner backs Biscathorpe oil-drilling campaign in cross-country race
A runner at the Lincolnshire Cross-Country Championships showed her support for the campaign to stop a plan for oil-drilling at Biscathorpe.
Han Smith, a member of the grassroots action group, SOS Biscathorpe, sported the messages ‘Jog On Egdon’ and ‘No Oil’ as she tackled the wet and muddy 5.7-kilometre course which ran through the village.
Egdon Resources is the US-owned oil and gas company that has a strong interest in fracking in the UK and wants to start drilling in the attractive countryside of the Lincolnshire Wolds.
Last summer, the High Court threw out its plans, quashing the verdict of a public inquiry the previous year, but the firm is set to launch an appeal.
After completing the race, Han said: “I was so relieved when I heard that Egdon’s application to drill at Biscathorpe had been rejected.
"But I can’t believe that, in 2025, we are again facing the threat of this special landscape being industrialised by oil drilling. Despite the snow, mud and freezing river, I loved racing here.”
Han was one of more than 100 runners across eight categories that took part in the annual championships. The course, heralded by many as one of the best in England, splashed through the River Bain, one of only 200 rare chalk stream ecosystems in the world, which traverses Biscathorpe, next to Egdon’s proposed drilling site.
Cheering her from the sidelines was another local campaigner, farmer Mathilda Dennis, who brought the successful legal action, on behalf of SOS Biscathorpe, to the High Court.
She said: “It’s absurd that we are still having to oppose this climate-wrecking development, particularly in such a beautiful, protected landscape.
"Only recently, we have seen more misery and devastation caused by climate change, from flooding in Lincolnshire to wildfires in Los Angeles.”
The campaign against drilling at Biscathorpe, which is at the heart of a designated Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty, has been passionately fought for more than ten years.
Lincolnshire County Council rejected Egdon’s proposals in 2021, only for this to be overturned by the national Planning Inspectorate after a public inquiry at the Kenwick Park hotel in Louth.
Despite the High Court’s new ruling, Egdon is fighting on. But so is SOS Biscathorpe, which has raised £24,000 through a GoFundMe appeal to pay for legal fees and expert advice.