The UK’s most controversial shale gas site has failed to meet the deadline to plug two fracked wells – putting it in breach of planning consent.

Cuadrilla had until yesterday (8 December 2024) to seal the two Preston New Road wells, in Lancashire.

But the work, known as well decommissioning or plugging and abandonment, has not started, even though the company was given extra time.

Lancashire County Council, which issued the latest consent for the site near Blackpool, told us the company would be in breach of a planning condition if it missed yesterday’s deadline.

Cuadrilla’s failure to seal the wells has angered local campaigners who have opposed the fracking site for more than 10 years. The local MP has written to the council about the delays. There are also concerns about who will pay for the decommissioning.

The Preston New Road wells are the UK’s only onshore horizontal shale gas wells to be fracked. The hydraulic fracturing operations in 2018 and 2019 caused multiple small earthquakes and led to a moratorium on fracking in England, which remains in force.

Since then, the site has been mothballed, with limited activity, for about five years.

This is not the first time Cuadrilla has breached planning conditions at Preston New Road. The site now joins at least two other onshore oil and gas pads in England currently in breach of planning permission.

We sent questions to Cuadrilla about the missed deadline but it did not respond.

More time

In June 2023, Lancashire County Council agreed to Cuadrilla’s request to extend the planning permission for Preston New Road. This gave the company an extra 18 months to plug and abandon the wells and two years to restore the site.

The authority confirmed to DrillOrDrop that the deadline to finish work on the wells was 8 December 2024.

When Cuadrilla applied for the extra time, it produced a project plan which allowed seven months to decommission the wells. According to the plan, work would begin in September 2023 and finish in March 2024.

But it soon became obvious that Cuadrilla was behind its own schedule.

The company later extended the date for the start of decommissioning. But no work began.

Grass grew across the access road and the Preston New Road entrance briefly became a site for fly-tipping.

Update details

The extension of planning permission granted in June 2023 required Cuadrilla to send six-monthly updates to the county council.

The first report was due on 7 December 2023 and was a week late.

It said:

“initial rig procurement has started with the intention to join a wider programme of wellbore abandonments across the UK with other operators”.  

The report also changed the target date to begin abandoning the wells from September 2023 to summer 2024.

Senior council planner, Jonathan Haine, told residents he had “some concerns that they [Cuadrilla] are behind the project timeline so I will be raising that with them”.

The second update, due on 7 June 2024, was dated 28 June 2024. It was almost identical to the December 2023 report. The only difference was that Cuadrilla said initial rig procurement was “within the final stages of award”.

We understand that after the June 2024 report council planners sent questions to Cuadrilla about progress on decommissioning and restoration at Preston New Road.

In October 2024, the county council told BBC Radio Lancashire it was concerned Cuadrilla might miss the decommissioning deadline, then two months away. The authority said it was “in discussion with [Cuadrilla] as to how the restoration of the site can be progressed”.

Last week, a spokesperson for the authority told us:

“The planning permission in place requires Cuadrilla to decommission the wells at the Preston New Road site by December 8, 2024, and restore the site back to agricultural land by June 2025.

“In the event of a breach of planning permission, the County Council has powers to compel a landowner or operator to comply with conditions to a planning permission.

“We will continue to seek engagement from the firm on this matter.”

Reaction

Local people have regularly expressed frustration about delays at Preston New Road

A spokesperson for the campaign group, Preston New Road Action group, said:

 “It is disappointing if not surprising that Cuadrilla have missed their deadline. They have had 18 months to plug and cap the wells but so far appear to have done nothing.

“We will be watching with great interest to see what happens over the coming six months by the end of which the site needs to be completely restored. We can only hope that the regulators start to take some action and put pressure on Cuadrilla to get on with the decommissioning.”

Miranda Cox, a local resident and campaigner for Frack Free Lancashire, said:       

“Yet again we are disappointed but not surprised by Cuadrilla’s inability to adhere to planning conditions.  We were deeply concerned that Lancashire County Council granted them an extension in 2023 because we anticipated these delays.

“It is unfortunate that a company with such a poor track record in compliance was treated so favourably by the planning authority, despite a history of planning and environmental breaches.

“For years residents have had their lives blighted by fracking and, even when dormant, the site continues to remind residents how little those in positions of authority care.

“Residents have not been updated about progress, or lack of, and are frustrated that once again Cuadrilla seem to act with impunity.  We strongly urge Lancashire County Council to take action. We are angered that the public will no doubt end up picking up the bill for this incompetence”.

Nick Danby, another resident and Frack Free Lancashire campaigner, said:

“We have repeatedly pressed LCC [Lancashire County Council] on this matter and have repeatedly urged them to take enforcement action. LCC’s response has been pathetic and, in fact, they have not even replied to our last few approaches.

“It gives us no pleasure or satisfaction that we have been vindicated. LCC have completely failed the taxpayer and it seems highly likely that it will be the taxpayer that picks up the tab for the decommissioning and restoration of the Preston New Road site.

“The delays again raised concerns about who pays to return an onshore oil or gas site to its former condition if the operator and landowner cannot or will not do the work.”

Jeff Turner, another resident, said:

“I am glad the council will finally have to get involved as there is now a clear breach of the planning permission.

“I am dismayed they wouldn’t get involved sooner as their stance was Cuadrilla have always been compliant because they have provided the 6 monthly updates. It was obvious from even the first update that Cuadrilla were significantly behind schedule. Surely disregarding the timeline is a breach itself.

“Due to Lancashire County Council’s weak approach we are now in a position that Cuadrilla are around 16 months behind and have not even started decommissioning.”

What happens now?

The June 2023 planning permission required Cuadrilla to plug and cap the wells. This usually involves placing several cement plugs in the wellbore to isolate the hydrocarbon reservoir and other fluid-bearing formations. The aim is to “prevent unintended emissions or contamination”.

Cuadrilla is also required to remove remaining equipment from Preston New Road. The most recent drone footage showed a flare stack and bags of sand dating back to the fracking operations. Fencing and lighting, which are still in place, must be removed.

Under planning guidance, Lancashire County Council has a responsibility for taking “whatever enforcement action may be necessary, in the public interest”.

The guidance says effective enforcement is important to:

• “maintain the integrity of the decision-making process”
• “help ensure that public acceptance of the decision-making process is maintained”
• “tackle breaches of planning control which would otherwise have unacceptable impact on the amenity of the area”

The county council could issue an enforcement notice. This can be used where the local planning authority is satisfied that it appears there has been a breach of planning control and it is expedient to issue a notice.

Developers can appeal against an enforcement notice. But it is an offence not to comply once the period for compliance has elapsed, and there is no outstanding appeal. On conviction, developers could face an unlimited fine.

Local planning authorities have powers to enter enforcement notice land and carry out the requirements of the notice themselves

Planning regulations also allow local authorities to issue a breach of condition notice. There is no right of appeal against a beach of condition notice. Developers can face an unlimited fine on conviction.

Another deadline

Another decommissioning deadline for Preston New Road is fast approaching.

The industry regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), issued a plug and abandon notice for Preston New Road in August 2023.

This gave Cuadrilla more than 16 months to decommission the wells.

The deadline for completing the work is 22 days away, at the end of this month (December 2024).

We asked NSTA whether this notice remained in force and whether Cuadrilla had asked for an extension. We also asked what action NSTA had taken to monitor compliance with the notice and how it could be enforced.

The spokesperson for the regulator said:

“We cannot comment on any interactions we have had with operators due to reasons of commercial confidentiality. However, through our continuing stewardship of the onshore oil and gas industry, we are fully aware of ongoing developments.”

But an open letter from NSTA to licensees a year ago said:

“The NSTA expects all licensees to comply with their well decommissioning regulator obligations in a timely manner and particularly within specified timescales”.

The letter also said:

“That means that normally we do not expect licensees to request to extend suspension consents.”

It also said:

“We do recognise that circumstances may from time to time arise that might cause an application to defer such obligations to be made, however, the NSTA will only grant such a deferment of a decommissioning obligation in exceptional circumstances.”

Costs and liabilities

Opponents of shale gas have feared that some companies may try to avoid their decommissioning liabilities.

They have pointed to the complicated corporate structures, where a limited subsidiary company is set up to run a single well site.

This means the personal liability of the owners or shareholders of the operator is limited to their investment in the company. The company could go out of business, avoiding having to pay decommissioning costs, without involving the parent.

The government is liable for decommissioning offshore oil and gas assets if the operator were unable to pay for the work. But there is no equivalent legislation for onshore wells.

At Preston New Road, Lancashire County Council is responsible for enforcing the decommissioning and restoration work.

The council has told local people that if the operator, Cuadrilla Bowland Limited, went out of business and was unable to decommission the wells, the liability would pass to the landowner.

A senior Lancashire planner confirmed:

“Ultimately the land owner is responsible for the restoration of the site as the planning permission runs with the land, not the operating company so if there was any failure to restore the site and Cuadrilla no longer existed as a company we would be enforcing against the landowner.”

But in 2019, the then Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) admitted to the National Audit Office that arrangements to make the landowner pay were “unclear and untested”. BEIS was also “unable to explain who would meet decommissioning costs if the landowners were unable to do so”.

The Preston New Road well pad is owned by a limited company, JAAW Limited.

The most recent accounts of JAAW Limited, for the year ended 31 March 2023, recorded that the company had net assets after deduction of liabilities of £83,239.

We don’t know the cost of plugging and abandoning the two Preston New Road wells.

But we do know that a report by the National Audit Office in 2019 estimated well decommissioning at £195,000-£1,000,000 per well, depending on the design and depth.

Official fracking documents record the depth of the horizontal sections of the Preston New Road wells at more than 2km.  (PNR1z and PNR2).  

The site operator, Cuadrilla Bowland Limited, reported a loss of £46.3m in its accounts for the year ending 30 June 2023. Its net liabilities for this period were £44.5m.

The company is dependent for funding on Cuadrilla Resources Limited, the lead company of the Cuadrilla Group, and the ultimate parent company, the Australian mining group, AJ Lucas.

Cuadrilla Resources Limited reported a loss of £64.3m for the year ending June 2023 and net liabilities of £110.2m.

AJ Lucas has said it would continue to provide support to Cuadrilla companies for 12 months from 31 March 2024.

Local planning authorities can request financial security from an operator for the costs of restoration and aftercare of land. Nottinghamshire and North Yorkshire used this power with two shale gas applications in their areas.

But Lancashire County Council did not do this for Preston New Road, even though the wells were the first UK horizontal boreholes to be fracked.

John Hobson, of Refracktion.org, has followed Cuadrilla’s work at Preston New Road. He said:

“Local residents are rightly very concerned about the continuing delay in decommissioning the wells and restoring the site.

“If Cuadrilla Bowland Limited were to fail to fund the decommissioning costs then they would fall upon the landowner. The owner of the field where the pad is sited is a limited company with assets of just £83,000.

“According to the NAO, the Dept for BEIS was unable in 2019 to ‘explain who would meet decommissioning costs if the landowners were unable to so’.

“It is therefore entirely possible that the ‘decommissioner of last resort’ will end up being the local council tax payer.

“Lancashire County Council planning department are being treated with contempt by Cuadrilla. They need to seriously up their game and take enforcement action immediately to ensure that Cuadrilla decommission the wells and restore the site without any further delay.”

“Poor history of compliance”

Anti-fracking campaigners have accused Cuadrilla of a “poor history of compliance” at Preston New Road.

In 2017, there were some deliveries to Preston New Road that did not use the agreed traffic route, breaching conditions of the planning permission. The county council said the breaches had been the result of police advice on protests. Enforcement action would not be “appropriate or expedient”, the council said.

Also in 2017, Cuadrilla breached a planning condition by delivering a rig overnight. More than 4,000 people signed a petition in four days calling for the enforcement of planning conditions. In this case, the council told the company to “put measures in place to prevent a recurrence”.

At around this time, campaigners also reported other alleged planning breaches, which included lorries waiting outside the Preston New Road site access, lorries with loose material that had not been sheeted and lorries leaving the site without using wheel-cleaning facilities.

There were also breaches of the environmental permit conditions in 2017, 2018 and 2019. These included failures on: methane and groundwater monitoring, waste and surface water management and incorrectly certified equipment.

Two other English onshore oil and gas sites are currently in breach of planning conditions.

DrillOrDrop recently reported on delays to restoration of the Broadford Bridge oil site in West Sussex and continued oil production at Horse Hill in Surrey, after the Supreme Court quashed planning permission.

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