THE firm behind plans to launch the country's first fracking operation since the Government lifted its ban on the controversial gas production method is confident the scheme will be determined before Christmas.

Third Energy operations director John Dewar said a chance also remained for North Yorkshire County Council to hold an extraordinary meeting within a month to consider its application to extract shale gas near homes and tourist resort Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire.

Following a meeting of the authority's planning and regulatory functions committee, where councillors approved extra training for its officers due to the scale and complexity of the scheme, leading opponents said they felt it likely the authority would accept the plan.

An anti-fracking campaigner, whose name is withheld, said while he felt confident the numerous plans to undertake the controversial practise in Ryedale would eventually be dismissed, members of the Conservative-led council were unlikely to reject the Kirby Misperton scheme on evidence currently available.

He said: "It looks like we could lose this battle, but we will win the war."

Frack Free Ryedale members, who are set to personally fund a fact-finding trip to the US later this month, added they would continue fighting shale gas schemes even if Third Energy's plan was approved and considered to have set a precedent, saying fracking would never be given a "social licence" in the area.

They said while Thirsk and Malton MP Kevin Hollinrake had called for studies to measure the impact of fracking on matters such public health and transport to be established, there would be insufficient time to produce accurate baselines before the gas operation started.

Mr Dewar said he felt the scale of the opposition to the scheme - the council has received thousands of letters of objection and about a dozen in support - had been partly due to Third Energy failing to explain the low impact of fracking to residents.

He said: "The community just have not been educated about this, all they have had is scare leaflets through their door."

Mr Dewar said the council had learned lessons from its counterpart in Lancashire, where there were small earthquakes linked to fracking in 2011, and was robustly examining the firm's proposals.

He added the most industrial part of the process had happened in 2013, when the firm spent 112 days drilling the well.