The shale gas company, Ineos, has installed new protest injunction notices at its proposed exploration site at Woodsetts in south Yorkshire.

The company first installed notices at Woodsetts in July 2017, days before it announced plans to apply for planning permission there.

The notices were later removed in 2019 after the Court of Appeal quashed sections of the injunction as unlawful.

Ineos does not have planning permission for the Woodsetts site.

Rotherham Council refused consent to drill and test a vertical shale gas well on 8 March 2018 and again on 7 September 2018.

The application did not include hydraulic fracturing but local people have said they see it as a precursor to fracking in the area.

A decision is still awaited on the permission after Ineos’s application went to a public inquiry in June 2019.

Since then, the government issued a moratorium on fracking, following earth tremors caused by Cuadrilla’s operations at Preston New Road in Lancashire.

The Woodsetts inquiry inspector, Katie Peerless, asked the parties, which included the local group, Woodsetts Against Fracking, to submit their comments on the moratorium.

Her report is due by 13 January 2020. The final decision will be made by the local government secretary.