Fracking decision’s limited impact

A decision to refuse to allow more time for the restoration of a controversial fracking site on the Fylde will make little difference to how long the process actually takes, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) understands.

Energy firm Cuadrilla last week failed in its bid to secure a further two years to return the Preston New Road plot, in Little Plumpton, to its previous use as farmland.

Lancashire County Council’s development control committee rejected the request for a time extension, which the company said it needed in order to fulfil a safety-related obligation to monitor the location for 12 months after the two wells dug there were plugged.

A report presented to committee members revealed that the plugging was completed in the spring of this year.   However, the LDRS understands that monitoring did not then begin until June.

An Environment Agency (EA) permit for the site requires that inspections continue to be carried out for a minimum of a year – and Cuadrilla said in its own application that it will take four months, “depending on weather conditions”,  to complete the subsequent restoration.

The process is therefore set to take at least 16 months of the 24 that the firm had applied for in additional time – regardless of the fact that the permission sought was ultimately refused.

Had it been approved, the clock would have started ticking from the point at which the previous permission lapsed at the end of June 2025 – meaning the earliest that the land could be fully restored is October 2026.

Committee members and anti-fracking campaigners criticised Cuadrilla for failing to make proper use of a previous two-year extension for restoration granted in June 2023, the date by which all trace of their fracking experiment was supposed to have been removed, according to the original planning approval granted by the government.

There were calls for Lancashire County Council not only to rule out extending the restoration timeframe any further, but also to take enforcement action against the firm to ensure compliance with that decision.

However, one of the authority’s planning officers, Flo Churchill, warned that attempting to enforce completion of the work before Cuadrilla had been able to discharge its duties under the EA permit could be seen as “unreasonable”.

Now, the LDRS has learned that the county council is under no obligation to take any enforcement action at all – in spite of the fracking site now being in place without planning permission – and will only do so if it is deemed expedient under local planning policy.

The timescales demanded for site restoration in any enforcement notice would also have to overtly recognise the other regulatory requirements placed on the firm by the EA.

Cuadrilla can appeal the decision of the development control committee to refuse more time, as it could any enforcement action ultimately taken against it.   The LDRS has approached the company for comment.

The monitoring required by the EA is to ensure that the wells where fracking took place have caused no lasting environmental harm and are proven to be suitably isolated.

The process will involve assessment of groundwater at eight points on the site, along with monitoring of any methane emissions from above the abandoned wellbores.

In its application for the latest time extension, Cuadrilla said that delaying on-site demolition and restoration works until the environmental monitoring has been completed would “improve data integrity and ensure that groundwater and surface water data has not been affected by surface activities”

It added:  “In the unlikely scenario that the environmental monitoring demonstrates that the hydrocarbon boreholes require accessing to address any well decommissioning issues, a restored site would introduce further redevelopment work and a new planning application to access the boreholes.”

Restoration, when it finally takes place, will see the concrete pad and cellar in the centre of the site removed by a licensed waste contractor, along with all other surface material and fracking infrastructure.   The land will then be reseeded and returned to agricultural use.

Frack Free Lancashire spokesperson Miranda Cox said that while the group welcomed the refusal of Cuadrilla’s time extension application, it noted “a distinct lack of sanctions for the the failed firm”.

“Cuadrilla have repeatedly, throughout their dismal presence in Fylde, failed to comply with regulations. They have been allowed to push environmental and planning regulations with little punishment for over 12 years.

“Frack Free Lancashire and other groups will be monitoring the Preston New Road site and will continue to seek updates from Lancashire County Council. The whole debacle is a salutary lesson in the failure of so-called ‘gold-standard regulations’.”