Fracking protester warns: 'Yorkshire's gorgeous, but that can be taken away’

Testing by Third Energy expected to get go-ahead soon at Kirby Misperton, the first in UK since 2011

For the past year, Leigh Coghill has devoted her life to one thing - trying to stop the gas exploration company Third Energy from fracking on the outskirts of a tiny village in North Yorkshire. The 26-year-old from Wolverhampton, who "married into Yorkshire", quit her job working for York council in November last year, deciding to devote herself to the cause.

Since September, when Third Energy started preparing the site at Kirby Misperton for fracking, she has been one of a group of around forty Ryedale locals to have spent almost every day protesting next to the gates to the well, holding banners and placards, and watching in dismay as lorries trundle in.