First UK fracking site in five years approved in North Yorkshire

• Video report by ITV News' Damon Green

Councillors in North Yorkshire have approved the first fracking operation in the UK for five years.

Energy firm Third Energy will now be free to frack at an existing drilling site near the village of Kirby Misperton, between Malton and Pickering.

The ruling was condemned as a tragedy by protesters who have called for a nationwide response to fight the controversial gas extraction technique.

The government has previously said it is going "all out for shale" to boost energy security and the economy.

The fracking application is the first to be approved in the UK since 2011, when tests on the Fylde coast, in Lancashire, were found to have been the probable cause of minor earthquakes in the area.

Fracking is the process in which liquid is pumped deep underground at high pressure to fracture rock and release gas.

Opponents of the practice have raised concerns about safety, the environment, health and increased traffic in the area.

Supporters and experts - in areas including noise, water, ecology and landscape - made statements to the council committee suggesting otherwise.

The chair of the committee which took the decision admitted it was "by far the most controversial application we have ever had to deal with."

Vicky Perkin, a council planning officer, told the committee that of the 4,420 individual representations, 4,375 were objections and just 36 were in favour of the application.

Rasik Valand, chief executive of Third Energy, said work would not start at the site for "months and months" and would initially be an "exploration phase".

Dr Adam Marshall, acting director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, described the decision as a "much-needed victory for pragmatism, in the face of the serious energy security problems Britain faces".