Equipment to plug and abandon the mothballed well at a shale gas site in north Nottinghamshire was delivered this morning.

Two cranes heading for the Springs Road site came through the village of Misson at about 7am. Permission had been refused for them to cross a nearby railway line on the designated heavy vehicle route.

Other equipment came on the designated route, avoiding the village.

Work on decommissioning the well was due to start today and is scheduled to take about four weeks.

Site restoration, including the removal of the stone from the pad, is expected to follow and last about 11 weeks.

Opponents of shale gas operations welcomed the decommissioning and restoration work. A statement from Frack Free Misson said this morning:

“This has been a hard-won victory, which residents of Misson will go on to enjoy all the more when works are finally complete.”

A county council planner said it was “regrettable” that the cranes had to come through the village but “securing restoration” was paramount. Discussions were ongoing to “secure agreement for the cranes to leave via the designated route”, the council said.

The Springs Road well pad, operated by Star Energy (formerly IGas), is part of the Rocket Site, a former bombing range and test base for cold war Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles.

It is next to Misson Carr site of special scientific interest (SSSI), a large wetland fen that is home to rare and threatened wildlife, including all five species of British owl.

IGas drilled one shale gas well at Springs Road in early 2019. The company was refused an extension of planning permission in March 2021. In October 2021, it announced it would not appeal. It was later ordered to restore the site.

Earlier this month, council planners said restoration should be completed by 31 January 2024, the final day before the formal start of the bird nesting season.

Star Energy has made no public statements to investors about decommissioning and restoration at Springs Road.

Frack Free Misson said today the company had been “given ample time to complete the program of exploratory work previously permitted”. It said a moratorium on fracking in England had not impeded exploration at the site.

In a statement, the group said:

“It is telling that the only reason restoration works are now in progress is due to persistent pressure from local campaigners, resulting in enforcement action being taken by the county council. This typifies the contempt with which the company has regarded its obligations under planning law since imposing itself on the local community seven years ago.

“The site is only 125m from Misson Carr nature reserve, a SSSI which is populated by all 5 species of British native owls.

“When permission was originally granted, in order to protect the birds from excessive noise during the breeding season, planners allowed a 22-week window in which to complete the 14-week construction phase of works. However, operations did not start until November 2017, some 11 weeks into that window, causing the project to overrun. This adversely impacted the owls’ long-established pattern of behaviour by driving them from their usual nesting sites.”

IGas had previously said it planned to frack at Springs Road if the moratorium were lifted. It said the well confirmed “significant gas bearing shale sections”.

But Frack Free Misson said today:

“the industry’s own noise modelling from 2014 indicates that the Rocket Site would never have been suitable for future hydraulic fracturing operations, as noise levels would have likely been some 3 or 4 times above permitted limits.

“That Star Energy nor their planning consultants had the knowledge or foresight to predict such an outcome indicates either incompetence, or abject indifference to planning laws, part of the ‘gold standard regulations’ which the fracking industry repeatedly claimed would ensure the wellbeing of our communities and environment.”