energy

Protecting England’s fracking sites cost police £13m

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Police forces in the north of England spent more than £13m in less than two and a half years providing security at shale gas sites when only one well was fracked, according to the UK’s public spending watchdog.

A report by the National Audit Office highlighted the “financial pressures” that have been placed on local authorities and the police by the UK’s nascent fracking industry, which is strongly opposed by environment and local campaign groups.

The NAO said the full costs to taxpayers of fracking to date are “not known” but it estimates that “at least” £32.7m has been spent by various public bodies since 2011. 

This estimate includes £13.4m spent since the start of 2017 by three police forces — in Lancashire, North Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire — to provide security at various shale gas exploration sites.

The biggest burden has fallen on Lancashire Constabulary, in north-west England, which spent £11.8m between January 2017 and June of this year policing Preston New Road, a site near Blackpool where the private shale gas company Cuadrilla is active. During that period, Cuadrilla fracked its first well at the site, although it has since fracked a second, in August.

Cuadrilla, the only company to frack so far in the UK, was forced to stop work at the site in August after triggering an earthquake at a magnitude of 2.9 on the Richter scale.

It will not frack again at the site before its planning permission expires at the end of November, although it intends to seek an extension. It was only able to partially frack a well at the same project last year after numerous tremors above 0.5 — the level at which regulations kick in forcing a temporary suspension — were recorded.

Lancashire Constabulary said about 100 police officers were involved in the operation at Preston New Road.

It said it had recouped just under half of the £11.8m from the Home Office and it planned to make another application for special grant funding for the current financial year.

“I have always maintained that the police budget, from which we have had to save £84m since 2010, should be spent on policing services to keep people safe,” said Clive Grunshaw, Lancashire’s police and crime commissioner.

The NAO report said other areas of public funding since 2011 include environmental research and monitoring as well as processing shale gas planning applications.

Fracking in the UK has made little progress since a temporary ban was imposed after Cuadrilla’s first well in 2011 triggered an earthquake of magnitude 2.3, with just two subsequent attempts. The industry has focused on England as the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish devolved administrations do not support the controversial extraction process, which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals deep underground at high pressure to release gas from rock formations.

In 2016 the government forecast 20 wells would be fracked by the middle of next decade.

Fracking companies have to contribute some costs; for example they pay charges to the Environment Agency and planning application fees. But the NAO says the costs to public bodies of assessing a planning application “exceeds” these fees.

Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said successive governments have “wasted millions pushing an industry that is unpopular across the UK and fiercely opposed locally”, adding that the Labour party would ban fracking “immediately”. 

The business department did not comment on the policing costs but a spokesman said: “The government has always said shale gas exploration can only proceed as long as it is safe and environmentally responsible.”

The industry regulator is due to publish a scientific assessment of fracking data provided by the industry and the government said it would set out its approach “as soon as we have considered the findings”. Companies such as Cuadrilla have been pushed for a review of the seismicity limits allowed under current regulations.

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