The ruling Reform UK group on Lancashire County Council has refused back a permanent ban on fracking – suggesting that technological developments could reduce the risks surrounding shale gas extraction in future.
The party has instead said the current temporary block on the controversial process should continue while an “independent review” is carried out of the UK’s domestic energy sources.
It was in response to a call from opposition councillors for fracking to be outlawed for good – and led to a testy debate in which Reform branded their political opponents luddites and were themselves accused of being bankrolled by vested interests.
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Anti-fracking campaigners in the county have said the decision smacks of local Reform flip-flopping over the issue.
At a national level, the party is wedded to attempting to prove that fracking is safe – and then making it part of the UK’s energy mix if that conclusion can be reached. Its deputy leader Richard Tice has championed shale gas as an untapped source of energy – and the party’s 2024 general election manifesto included a commitment to “enable major production when safety is proven, with local compensation schemes [put in place]”.
However, Reform in Lancashire has previously said that conditions on the Fylde coast – where test drilling took place between 2017 and 2019 – “are not conducive to fracking”. The local party pointed to the East of England as the likely location for any future extraction sites, not Lancashire.
The current nationwide moratorium on fracking was introduced by the then Conservative government five years ago after a plot off Preston New Road in Little Plumpton – which was being explored by energy firm Cuadrilla – was linked to a series of earth tremors, the largest of which measured 2.9 on the Richter scale.
The Labour Party pledged in its general election manifesto last year that it would ban fracking permanently – and, earlier this month, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband committed to making that pledge law “at the earliest opportunity”.
Lancashire County Council’s Labour group and the main opposition Progressive Lancashire alliance teamed up to press for the government to honour that promise at a council meeting on Thursday.
Presenting a motion on the subject, Labour leader Mark Clifford said that Lancashire residents have repeatedly made their views clear on the subject.
“Time and again, communities have said ‘no’ to fracking. We cannot allow national politics or corporate interest to override the will of the people we serve,” County Cllr Clifford said.
He claimed that the risks of shale gas extraction did not stop at earth tremors, but said that the process also “threatens our water supplies, our air quality and our countryside”.
“It industrialises [the] rural landscape and undermines our fight against climate change.
“Some may argue that fracking will bring jobs and lower bills, [but] the truth is stark – it will do neither. The jobs are short-term and few in number,” County Cllr Cliford argued.
He cited “industry estimates” suggesting fracking would create just “hundreds” of roles – and contrasted that with National Grid forecasts that the low-carbon and renewable energy sectors would employ 400,000 people by 2050.
However, setting out an amendment to the opposition motion, Reform backbencher Joel Tetlow (Accrington North) said: “Calling for a permanent national ban may feel reassuring, but it risks shutting down future options before we’ve fully explored them.
“Technology evolves and so must our thinking,” he added.
The rewritten proposition voted on by councillors retained an acknowledgement that “many Lancashire residents strongly oppose” shale gas extraction anywhere in the county. But rather than supporting the planned permanent ban, it called for a review into domestic energy sources that would include “shale gas, renewables and nuclear”.
“Past experiences in Lancashire have left many residents sceptical [about fracking], but we must also be honest about the challenges that we face – energy security, rising costs and the need for domestic resilience,” County Cllr Tetlow said.
“Let’s not make policy based on fear or ideology – let’s make it based on facts, fairness and the future,” he concluded, accusing opposition groups of “positioning” on the issue.
The amendment also said future energy developments should be “subject to strong community engagement and evidence-led decision-making that prioritises safety, sustainability and local concerns”.
However, opposition members lined up with a litany of criticisms of the revised motion – and claims about the reasons underpinning it.
Liberal Democrat David Whipp (Pendle Rural) said it was “quite clear that Reform is the political arm of the fossil fuel lobby”.
He cited figures suggesting 92 percent of the party’s funding between 2019 and 2024 came from “climate science deniers and fossil fuel interests – its polluter paymasters”. The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) found that the statistic was reported by the climate change investigative website DeSmog, whose June 2024 article on the issue included a rejection from one of the Reform donors named that he was a “climate science denier”.
Meanwhile, County Cllr Whipp poured scorn on any suggestion that Lancashire was not a likely target for future fracking operations, telling the County Hall meeting that Bowland-Hodder shale ran beneath large swathes of the county, making it “very vulnerable indeed” to a re-energised shale gas industry.
Conservative member John Singleton – who represents the Fylde West division in which the now decommissioned Preston New Road site sits – rubbished recent comments made by Richard Tice that “earthquakes”, albeit of lower seismicity than those associated with fracking in Fylde, could be caused by perfectly innocuous occurrences like dropping a melon from shoulder height or moving a chair to stand up.
“I think that’s far from the truth,” County Cllr Singleton said.
“It’s time that the Reform leadership and our own Reform county councillors support our residents in Lancashire with a permanent ban. Fracking should be excluded from all future reviews of our energy requirements, certainly in Lancashire.”
But Reform county councillor Luke Parker (Preston East) said the party simply wanted to keep “an open mind and [give] the public a fair say” on the future of the UK’s energy options.
“Technology is moving rapidly and with it come[s] new opportunities to reduce risk, improve safety and strengthen our energy independence,” County Cllr Parker claimed, adding that issues such as rising energy bills for Lancashire households also had to be factored into considerations about fracking.
“It would be irresponsible not to look at every available option for securing affordable, reliable energy for the long term,” he said.
However, Progressive Lancashire group leader – and independent county councillor – Azhar Ali said it was nonsense to suggest that fracking was simply in need of some as-yet-unknown technological advancement in order to make it safe.
“Fracking isn’t a technology – it’s an unsafe form of drilling which has caused earth tremors,” he said.
Green Party group leader Gina Dowding – who is also deputy leader of the Progressive Lancashire alliance and seconded the original Labour motion – said fracking was “dead in the water” and had “no social support” from residents.
She added that there were also good economic reasons to end the debate over whether the process might ever spiral back up the political agenda in future.
“Our businesses in Lancashire want to invest in renewables, they want the certainty of knowing that this council is going to support them in investment in new technologies in battery storage and in a whole range of forward-looking, 21st-century technologies coming forward,” County Cllr Dowding said.
However, Reform county councillor Clive Balchin (Mid Rossendale) railed against what he described as the “dogmatic” and “luddite attitude” of the proponents of the motion promoting a ban – and their “refusal to see the bigger picture”.
“This year marks 200 years since the first steam-powered train ran commercially. Imagine [if County Cllrs Clifford and Dowding were] running the railways.
“Along comes someone like me and says…’I’ve got a great idea – instead of using steam, let’s use electricity.’ [They’d have said] ‘Nay, lad, nay – we’ve got steam and we’re sticking with it.’
“Keeping an open mind while using good judgement is an approach I wish they would adopt,” County Cllr Balchin said.
The amended motion was approved by a majority.
‘Fracking is finished – or it should be’
In response to Lancashire County Council declining the opportunity to back an outright and permanent ban on fracking, Frack Free Lancashire spokesperson Nick Danby told the LDRS that it was “disappointing but not in the least surprising”.
“We have already heard from the Reform leadership in Lancashire that they do not support fracking here because the geology is not suitable – and now they are saying that any future decision should be ‘evidence-based’.
“Are we to understand that Lancashire Reform have changed their minds or perhaps they have a plan to transform the geology?
“The people of Lancashire deserve far better than this and will stand firmly against any attempt to resurrect this obsolete industry.
“Lancashire County Council could make an excellent start by refusing Cuadrilla’s application to extend their stay at the Preston New Road site by a further two years.
“Enough is enough,” Mr. Danby added.
Cuadrilla has applied to the authority for more time to complete the restoration process at its previously drilled plot in Little Plumpton.
The necessary decommissioning work – and the landscaping needed to put the site back the way it was – should have been completed by July 2023 under the planning permission granted by the government back in 2016.
The firm has already been handed one extension by the county council pushing that deadline back to July 2025, but earlier this year requested another two years to fully restore the land, because of the need to continue “environmental monitoring” at the location.
It stressed that the wellbores at the site have now been “safely plugged and decommissioned”.
The latest extension request – made in a formal planning application – will be decided by Lancashire County Council’s cross-party development control committee which is obliged to base its decision solely on planning law, discounting any political considerations.
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