Cuadrilla’s latest attempt to extend the deadline for site restoration of its fracked shale gas site near Blackpool has been published.

The company failed to meet the 8 June 2025 deadline to return the Preston New Road site to farmland, set by the existing planning permission.

As expected, Cuadrilla has now submitted a planning application to push the restoration time limit to 30 June 2027.

An application document said the extension was needed “to allow sufficient time to complete monitoring requirements as required by the Environment Agency and subsequent site restoration.”

It added:

“The site will now enter a period of suspension for post abandonment monitoring to verify, to the satisfaction of the Environment Agency, that wells have demonstrated isolation, and that no lasting environmental harm has been caused by the hydrocarbon wellbores. As a minimum, 12 months groundwater and wider environmental monitoring is required.”

The document (below) suggests that site demolition and restoration will not begin until after the 12 months of monitoring has been completed.

If the application were approved, this would be the second time extension for restoration at Preston New Road, totalling four additional years.

A previous application for Preston New Road, granted in June 2023, allowed another two-year delay of final restoration until June 2025. In that application, the company said:

“A period of groundwater and surface water monitoring, as required by the Environment Agency permit, will follow on after well decommissioning. …

“Once the wells are decommissioned it is anticipated up to a 12-month period of post decommissioning environmental monitoring will be required.”

Reaction

A spokesperson for the opposition group, Frack Free Lancashire, said:

“Cuadrilla have now been in breach of their planning permission for over a month and nobody appears to have any idea what they have actually done to decommission the wells themselves.

“This is not the first time that they have played fast and loose with the decommissioning regulations and it is high time that Lancashire County Council showed some backbone and took proper and effective enforcement action.

“This will be a real test of the effectiveness of the new administration at LCC “

“Taking steps”

Last month, Lancashire County Council told DrillOrDrop it was “taking steps to ensure that all the remaining restoration works are completed as swiftly as possible”.

It also said it was seeking “formal confirmation” that appropriate regulators had signed off plugging and abandonment of the site’s two shale gas wells.

We asked the council what steps it had taken and whether it had received this confirmation. We also asked about pre-application advice on the application to extend the restoration deadline.

The council said it was unable to reply today. We will update this article when we receive a response.

Delegated powers

The application entry on the council online portal indicates that the decision would not be made by the council’s planning committee but under delegated powers by officials.

This could change during consideration of the application.

Lancashire County Council’s scheme of delegation to officers recommends that decisions should not generally be taken by officers in areas where there are “likely to be political sensitivities, significant opposition from the public, or media (including social media) interest.