No fracking in Lancashire, says Reform-led council

A former test drilling site in Lancashire is due to be wound up

There are no plans for fracking to return in Lancashire, the county's Reform-led council has said, despite a wider party promise to let energy firms "drill, baby, drill".

Reform has pledged to lift the ban to access what deputy leader Richard Tice said was "potentially hundreds of billions of energy treasure in the form of shale gas" if they take power.

But Simon Evans, deputy leader of Lancashire County Council, said conditions on the Fylde Coast were "not conducive to fracking, and there are no plans for it to take place here".

He said the party supported fracking on a "case-by-case basis", adding more activity was expected in the east rather than the north-west of England.

County Councillor Joshn Roberts, cabinet member for rural affairs, told the BBC last month: "Fracking has its place but not everywhere in Lancashire.

"The geology is the issue the shale under the peat is so porous and unstable and that brings a real risk such as subsidence and water contamination.

"It has a place when safety is proven but it has been proven in Lancashire not to be safe."

'Massive opposition'

A site off Preston New Road in Fylde became the focus of semi-permanent protest after the government gave the green light for test drilling by energy firm Cuadrilla in October 2016.

The process was suspended – and the national ban, or moratorium, imposed – in 2019 after a series of tremors at the Little Plumpton plot that year, the largest of them measuring 2.9 on the Richter scale.

Nick Danby, from Frack Free Lancashire, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that Reform would face "massive and sustained opposition, both nationally and locally, if they try to resurrect fracking".

Cuadrilla recently applied for a two-year extension to rehabilitate the Preston New Road drilling site, claiming the delay re-establishing the farmland is due to monitoring required by the Environment Agency.

The company said while work, including the plugging and capping of wells, had taken place, monitoring by the Environment Agency meant the restoration may not be completed before summer 2027.

A consultation has opened on Cuadrilla's application.