After years of protest, hyperbole and delays, fracking has returned to the UK. After seeing off a last-minute legal challenge, shale gas firm Cuadrilla began fracking near Blackpool on Monday.
The drive to extract gas from the rocks beneath the UK has catalysed the environmental movement in recent years, uniting concerned local residents and climate campaigners.
Protests have stepped up at Cuadrilla’s site in recent days, and activists have promised to hold a “national climate crisis rally” at a farm near the fracking site on Saturday.
On Wednesday, three anti-fracking campaigners were released from jail after the court of appeal quashed their “excessive” jail sentences for blocking the Cuadrilla site last year.
Meanwhile the government is robustly defending its pro-fracking stance, despite energy minister Claire Perry admitting she has never visited an exploratory shale gas site.
All eyes will now be on whether the industry can extract the gas safely as it has promised. Here’s how the UK’s road to fracking unfolded.
Singleton, September 2011
A shale gas well was drilled near the picture postcard-worthy village of Singleton in Lancashire, but Cuadrilla decided against fracking there. However, it did frack its Preese Hall site in the spring of 2011, leading to earthquakes.
While the quakes were minor, they were felt by people in Blackpool and marked the first time the technique of extracting gas and oil through fracking came to national attention in the UK. In the wake of the tremors, the UK government imposed a moratorium that was not lifted until the end of 2012.
Singleton village in Lancashire
Cuadrilla’s exploratory rig drilling for shale gas at Banks in Lancashire.
Barton Moss, 2013
New Age encampment at Barton Moss in Salford. The peace camp set up by anti-fracking campaigners at Barton Moss, Salford, where iGas was drilling to determine if the area is commercially viable for shale gas fracking.
2013 was arguably the year that ignited the flame of the anti-fracking movement in the UK. Cuadrilla faced large, sustained and disruptive protests from fracking opponents at its site near the West Sussex village of Balcombe, despite the firm denying it planned to frack there.
Oil fracking protest at Balcombe, West Sussex, 2013.
Guinevere lighting candles outside her caravan, December 2013 - a traditional Traveller custom. Below; Protesters from Frack-Free Greater Manchester blocking Barton Moss Road to stop drilling equipment being delivered to allow iGas to explore for shale gas on land adjacent to City airport.
Anti-fracking campaigners took a stand later that year against drilling of a shale well at Barton Moss in Salford, protesting in often freezing temperatures. Shale firm iGas did successfully drill the well, but has not proceeded to frack it. National green groups also turned the heat up, setting up a mock shale rig in the constituency of then chancellor George Osborne, a bullish proponent of fracking.
Greenpeace setting up giant mock fracking camp on a roundabout outside the constituency office of the then chancellor, George Osborne, in Knutsford, March 2013.
This was the year that public opinion appeared to turn against fracking, with a government poll showing the number of people opposed had outnumbered those in favour for the first time. Controversially, the government later temporarily dropped that polling.
However, between 2012 and 2014, a series of official reports cleared fracking on safety, health and environmental grounds, paving the way for industry and government to push ahead.
Members of Residents’ Action on Fylde Fracking, Pam Foster, Ebony Ava Johnson and Ian Roberts. Below; Dairy farmer Robert Sanderson, was against fracking on grounds of pollution. Claire Smith, host at the Number One St Luke’s hotel, welcomed the business boost to the area.
Lancashire 2014-2016
Campaigners celebrating outside Preston county hall after Lancashire council rejected Cuadrilla’s application to frack for shale gas at Little Plumpton and Roseacre Wood on traffic grounds.
As it became increasingly clear that Lancashire would be the frontline of the first fracking, local communities and campaigners stepped up their opposition. A group dubbed the “Lancashire nanas” occupied a farmer’s field near Blackpool in protest at Cuadrilla’s plans to explore there for shale gas.
Anti-fracking campaigners marching up Blackpool promenade in August 2014 on a family-friendly rally ahead of a day of action the following day.
Cuadrilla’s offices in Blackpool being surrounded in August 2014.
In 2015, anti-frackers celebrated a victory when Lancashire county council rejected applications by Cuadrilla to frack at two sites in the county, at Preston New Road and Roseacre Wood.
Anti-fracking campaigners celebrating in June 2015 outside county hall in Preston after Lancashire county council rejected Cuadrilla’s application to frack for shale gas at two sites - Little Plumpton and Roseacre Wood.
The change of prime minister from pro-fracking David Cameron to Theresa May did not appear to diminish the government’s appetite for shale gas. Months after coming to power, May claimed householders living near shale wells would enjoy a ‘frackpot’ payout of up to £10,000 each.
More significantly, then communities secretary, Sajid Javid, overturned Lancashire county council’s rejection of Cuadrilla’s application, allowing the company to start work at Preston New Road. That decision, in October 2016, really fired the starting gun on the journey to the fracking that started this week.
Preston New Road, 2017 - 2018
Frack-Free Lancashire protester Cheryl Atkinson demonstrating at a site at Little Plumpton, March 2017.
Cuadrilla began construction work in January 2017 at its shale gas site at Preston New Road, in a farmer’s field off an A-road between Blackpool and Preston. That sparked the beginning of vigils and protests by campaigners, who have monitored the company’s operations, discovering moments such as the time Cuadrilla brought a drilling rig on site overnight, in breach of its licence conditions.
Frack-Free Lancashire protesters demonstrating at a site at Preston New Road, 2017. Below; Protesters locked-on with tyres and concrete, blocking the main Preston-Blackpool A-road in 2018.
Protesters against the renewed fracking work.
Critics staged protests that came to a peak during the summers of 2017 and 2018, dogging and sometimes delaying the company and its contractors by bringing traffic to a halt. Three campaigners – Simon Blevins, 26, Richard Roberts, 36, and Rich Loizou, 31 – this week had their prison sentences quashed for climbing onboard lorries outside the site in July 2017.
Environmental activists Rich Loizou, Richard Roberts and Simon Blevins, known as the Preston New Road Three and newly released from HMP Preston, with their partners outside Cuadrilla’s site in Little Plumpton, Lancashire
After drilling the UK’s first horizontal shale gas well 2km deep, Cuadrilla won a vital consent from the government in July 2018, allowing it to start fracking. The start of operations was briefly delayed by an 11th hour legal challenge and by Storm Callum, but finally began on 15 October. The process should take around three months.
