A PLANNING application for coal bed methane extraction (CBM) in Davyhulme – which was due to be considered at a meeting tonight – has been deferred by Trafford Council.

A protest against the proposal had also been due to take place at Trafford Town Hall tonight.

The council’s planning committee originally approved the application for an extraction next to Davyhulme Waste Water Treatment Works in 2010, but the applicant, IGas, is now seeking to extend the time limit of planning permission on the site for another three years.

The main part of the 1.2 hectare site, where the CBM will be extracted, is located to the west of the M60 Barton Bridge, between the motorway and the treatment works.

According to planning documentation, the area cited for the lateral drilling would span underneath Peel Energy’s Barton Renewable Enery Plant (BREP) site.

CBM has been likened to fracking, but planning documentation outlines that no rock fracturing or ‘fracking’ takes place during the process, which IGas has confirmed to Messenger.

Objectors, including the Breather Clean Air Group (BCAG), oppose the scheme on the grounds that the site could contaminate water supplies.

Trafford Council released the following statement: “The council has agreed to defer consideration of the application for Coal Bed Methane testing and production (81446/RENEWAL/2013) from tonight’s planning committee meeting in order to enable it to give further consideration to environmental issues raised by objectors.

“This application has raised a number of detailed and conflicting environmental issues and it is important that the council acts to ensure that its decision is fully informed in relation to these matters.

“The application will come back to committee once we are satisfied that these issues have been addressed.”