We recently confronted Cuadrilla Chief Executive, Francis Egan, over his plans to frack for shale gas underneath people’s homes in Lancashire. Cuadrilla has announced two new drilling sites in Lancashire, so we decided to pay them a visit and seek their assurance that they would respect the wishes of the Lancashire residents who have come together as part of Greenpeace’s legal block to tell them not to trespass on their land.
Cuadrilla has already been in trouble for trespassing above ground, eventually agreeing an out of court settlement with one Lancashire resident for using his land to install their seismic monitors. The resident later commented that: "Cuadrilla have lived up to my worst expectations. I am not a negative person but these people were so disingenuous to deal with: could they not have done it in a professional way?"
We caught up with them in the village of Elswick, near Preston, where together with public affairs firm Bell Pottinger (whom they have since fired for being rubbish), they were attempting to persuade local people that fracking is good for their community. We grabbed a few minutes with their CEO, Francis Egan, and asked him if he was going to frack under the homes of the more than 2000 people who had so far refused him permission to drill under their homes.
Predictably, Mr Egan admitted that, although Cuadrilla would not drill under people’s homes illegally, they would be seeking the legal right to do so. In other words, he wants the Government to strip people of their right to refuse his company permission to drill and frack underneath their property. Mr Egan has previously admitted that the ability of landowners to deny him access to their property is a problem. He told the Telegraph that: “clearly it’s an issue… we will have to cross that bridge when we come to it." That bridge could arrive sooner than he thinks. Local residents near Fernhurst in West Sussex have already exercised these rights by forming a legal blockade to deny drilling permission to frackers Celtique Energie – much to the anger of boss Geoff Davies.
Aware of the threat that the legal block presents to the fracking industry, the government has already admitted it is keen to overhaul trespass laws to make it possible for companies like Cuadrilla, British Gas and IGas to frack without your permission. In fact, we attended a workshop at the Department of Energy and Climate Change this month in which they asked these companies how they thought the government could help them get round it.
Unfortunately for them, they’ll need to bring forward new legislation to erode homeowners property rights – not a popular move. With over 29,000 people already signed up to the legal block, the land that is off limits to fracking companies is growing every day. All that remains to be seen is whether the Conservative Party is daft enough to bring forward legislation that undermines voter’s property rights in the run up to a general election.
