1. www.northwestbusinessinsider.com4 insider APRIL 2015
WHERE’S THE
POLICY?
FRACKING
I
t’s been described as the “dash for smart
gas”. Sitting below huge swathes of the
North West are trillions of square feet of
shale gas. Supporters say extracting it will
generate thousands of jobs; put billions of
pounds into the economy; and create
a “world-class cluster of expertise”.
Politicians have announced plans for a
£1.5m National College for onshore oil and
gas in Blackpool, and prime minister David
Cameron says the government is “going all
out” for shale gas in the UK, identifying the
need for greater energy security at compet-
itive prices. Companies such as iGas and
Cuadrilla have invested millions in shale
gas exploration but there’s a problem. No
commercial shale gas is being brought to the
surface and, according to a survey by law
firm Pinsent Masons, it will be least ten years
until it has any impact on the UK.
Exactly why is a moot point. Opponents
of fracking have highlighted environmental
and safety concerns about the industry but,
as Insider’s investigation has uncovered, the
majority of North West councils have no clear
policy on shale gas at all.
Insider contacted 40 local authorities in the
North West, asking whether they had a policy
on fracking. To get a cross-section of opinion
we approached councils in Greater Manches-
ter, Merseyside, Lancashire, Cheshire and
Cumbria. Of the 29 that responded only three
– Cheshire East, Wirral and Trafford – said
they were formally against the process.
Our investigation highlighted a number of
anomalies. While Cheshire East is steadfastly
against fracking, neighbouring Cheshire
West and Chester Council has launched a
cross-party working group to examine uncon-
ventional gas and oil techniques.
The remaining 26 local authorities had no
formal policy on fracking, and some said they
had not received any applications for explor-
atory drilling or that the responsibility for de-
termining applications rested with the county
council. St Helens Council even said that to
have a position on fracking “could open the
council to legal challenges relating to the
‘pre-determination’ of planning applications”.
Meanwhile, Fylde Council hadn’t agreed a
formal policy but had listened to presentations
in favour and against shale gas.
Shale gas drills can go to a depth of
10,000 sq ft but you don’t have to dig that
deep to get a different explanation for lack
of a consistent fracking policy in many North
West councils. “It’s a political football,” said
one senior figure. “The councils know that
shale gas could be a game-changer for the
economy but their elected members have an
election and the public have long memories.
The decisions are getting kicked into the long
grass – at least until after the election.”
Paul Rice, head of energy at Pinsent Ma-
sons, said: “I agree that not all authorities are
equipped to deal with applications, though
not all will have the same potential for shale
gas within their area. My feeling is that things
are slower than they should be. Applications
are clearly being held up; you only have to
look at some where planning officers had
recommended approval and the local com-
mittee rejected it on the basis of one vote.
SHALE GAS HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS THE NORTH WEST’S ANSWER TO NORTH SEA
OIL WITH THE POTENTIAL TO GENERATE THOUSANDS OF JOBS AND BILLIONS OF
REVENUE. BUT, AS INSIDER DISCOVERED, ONLY A FRACTION OF COUNCILS HAVE ANY
TYPE OF VIEW ON FRACKING. JENNY BROOKFIELD AND CHRIS MAGUIRE REPORT
AGENDA THE BIG QUESTION – FRACKING

2. www.northwestbusinessinsider.com insider APRIL 2015 5
Employment law
does not always
require employers
to be reasonable
Last month the High Court ruled that Leeds
Football Club was entitled to withhold nearly
£200,000 of notice pay from its technical
director because of an isolated but serious
act of misconduct five years previously.
The decision has attracted a range of
reactions, not least some puzzlement that
the Club could rely on this to defeat his claim,
despite the fact it did not know about it when
the decision to dismiss him was taken.
On the contrary, having served notice of
dismissal, the Club trawled through his
e-mail accounts in the hope of finding
something he had done wrong.
Like many things in the law the underlying
principle goes back many years – in this case
to the 1880s when the Court of Appeal
established the rule that even stale
allegations of misconduct discovered after
an employee has been dismissed can be
used to defeat a claim for notice pay. As the
judge pointed out in that case, the law does
not require employers to act reasonably in
this respect; though most will do so when
faced with a single instance of misconduct
which has been followed by many years of
honest service.
The harshness of these contractual
principles has now of course been softened
by more modern developments, notably the
law of unfair dismissal. Had Leeds Football
Club faced a claim in the employment
tribunal rather than the High Court, the
outcome would almost certainly been very
different. But in purely contractual disputes
over notice pay, nothing much seems to have
changed since Victorian times.
You can read more about these, and
other developments we anticipate in 2015, in
our employment blog at www.hrlawlive.co.uk
and also sign up to one of our employment
law updates or HR Hubs at
www.mills-reeve.com/legalevents.
Sara Barrett
Partner, Mills & Reeve LLP
0161 234 8848
sara.barrett@mills-reeve.com
Sara Barrett
Partner
Mills&Reeve 54167.indd 1 17/03/2015 10:12
ADVERTISEMENT
“With so much monitoring in place
around fracking, particularly with the new
Infrastructure Act provisions and the British
Geological Survey involved, it strikes me that
the public ought not to be as concerned as
it is. There is a resource that I think should
be developed, particularly in a world where
we have even scarcer resources and issues
in the Middle East and Russia. To my mind
the public should be very concerned about
energy security as well as perceived issues
that might arise from shale gas because, to
my mind, the protections are there.”
Lee Petts is managing director of Remsol
in Preston and the chief executive of the
Onshore Energy Services Group. In 2013 he
gave evidence at a House of Lords Economic
Affairs Committee about fracking in Lanca-
shire and admitted the planning process was
under pressure.
“We’ve had decades of relatively low, if
not underinvestment, in energy infrastructure,
then all of a sudden it’s coming to us from
all directions and we’ve got large-scale solar,
wind and shale coming along virtually at the
same time,” he said. “Ultimately a lot of the
skills that existed 20 years ago have now
gone from these local planning offices. If you
look at Lancashire, the last time there was
drilling activity for oil and gas was in the late
1980s, so it’s a long time since anybody in
that area had to consider it.
“The planning system itself, we believe, is
broadly fit for purpose and the £1.2m made
available by the government to support
local authorities should address some of
the issues. However, they have got to
be mindful that they need a broad range
of experienced people with the skills to
consider different energy developments,
not just shale gas, over the next 20 years.
Many applications for solar farms have
failed and I wonder if that’s because
people haven’t got the right skills to deter-
mine these applications.”
Lancashire has been one of the key
battlegrounds for the shale gas industry,
where energy company Cuadrilla has
applied to frack at Little Plumpton and
Roseacre Wood, between Blackpool and
Preston. Following a recommendation by
planners to refuse the project it was de-
ferred in January for eight weeks following
a request by the applicants.
Shale gas applications made in Lanca-
shire and Cumbria go before the county
councils, as mineral planning authorities
and Lancashire County Council’s leader
Jennifer Mein stressed the authority’s
development control committee base any
decisions on the planning regulations.
She said: “As exploration is still in its
early stages it’s not yet clear whether, and
on what scale, a shale gas industry could
develop and therefore difficult to say what
the impact on local people could be. The
council has called on the government to
maintain local control of planning, and for
the government and industry to address
people’s concerns and put in place a
regulated and robust inspection regime.
We need to make sure that if the industry

3. THE BIG QUESTION – FRACKING
www.northwestbusinessinsider.com6 insider APRIL 2015
TRIO OF COUNCILS OPPOSE FRACKING
n Cheshire East Council
said proposals to develop
the shale gas industry
would not be right for the
area. Council leader Mi-
chael Jones said the main
focus was on the potential
for geothermal technology
in Crewe – a “game-chang-
er” for the borough. He
said: “Fracking may well
be a useful technology for
other areas and good luck
to them if it is. The people
of Cheshire East have our
assurance that there won’t
be any in our borough.”
n Trafford Council resolved
that it was opposed to
fracking “until such time
as it can be proved to
be safe”. It said public
concerns “include the risk
of earth tremors, con-
tamination of ground and
surface water, the release
of ‘greenhouse’ gases and
noise pollutiom”.
n Wirral Council confirmed
its opposition to fracking
under Wirral, its offshore
coastal waters and the
Dee and Mersey estuaries
in 2014 “until such time as
the council is satisfied with
the safety of the process
and that the risk of adverse
environmental impacts has
been fully addressed”.
does begin to make profits from the area’s
natural resources, these extend beyond
the shareholders and workers to the wider
community.”
With its application still to be approved
Cuadrilla played a straight bat to our questions.
“To drill and hydraulically fracture a well
there’s a planning process that has to be
gone through,” said a spokesman. Howev-
er, chief executive Francis Egan was more
forthcoming when he took part in an Insider
round table last year on the Fylde Coast at
Blackpool Fylde and Wyre Economic Devel-
opment Company.
He said at the time: “The big issue is
confidence, among the general public and
confidence in our investors. Our investors are
global. If it doesn’t happen in the Fylde Coast
it will go elsewhere. Shale gas isn’t confined
to Blackpool. There’s a lot of gas in the
ground but until we drill and test the gas we
don’t know how viable it is. Poland is ahead
of the UK. China is getting its act together.
Germany is looking at it. There’s going to be
serious competition. Since 2007, Cuadrilla
has invested £100m in shale gas exploration
and we haven’t extracted anything yet. This
has got a window of two years.”
Fellow energy company iGas is the other
main operator, having successfully drilled
three exploration wells in the North West.
The most recent one was in Ellesmere Port
at the end of 2014, which confirmed 1,400 ft
of shale. The company is awaiting the results
of the analysis, which will then feed into
the data acquired from exploratory wells at
Ince Marshes in Cheshire and Barton Moss,
Manchester. A spokesman for the company
was similarly diplomatic: “We are confident
we can clearly demonstrate that we can
operate and hydraulically fracture safely and
environmentally responsibly.”
Bez of the band Happy Mondays has been
part of a noisy campaign against fracking but
there’s also a growing business movement
in favour of it. The North West Energy Task
Force, a coalition of 500 businesses and
academics, has estimated that natural gas
from shale could create 64,500 jobs and
a £33bn supply chain. A spokesman said:
“We respect the right of local authorities to
reflect the views of their communities in the
planning process. The taskforce and the
local business community believes that the
potential to create jobs, inward investment
and enhance our nation’s energy security
can also be included in the process.”
Fracking continues to polarize opinions but
everyone is agreed on one thing – the issue
isn’t going away anytime soon.
GREATER MANCHESTER
MANCHESTER No - no suitable locations No
TAMESIDE No - determined by the Greater Manchester Joint No
Minerals Plan (GMJMP)
SALFORD No - no indication of proposals affecting Salford No applications for drilling. Permission
granted in 2010 for exploratory drilling
for coal bed methane
OLDHAM No - No known or suspected shale deposits No
ROCHDALE No - (GMJMP) No
BURY No - dealt with on merit No
BOLTON No - dealt with on merit No
TRAFFORD Against - “until such time as it can be proved to be safe” No
WIGAN AND STOCKPORT – No response
LANCASHIRE
CHORLEY No - Lancashire County Council (LCC) would deal with
any applications
PENDLE No - LCC No
WEST LANCS No - LCC No
HYNDBURN No - LCC No
FYLDE No - LCC No
WYRE No - LCC No
LANCASTER No - because no schemes No
BLACKPOOL No - because not had any applications No
PRESTON No - LCC No
ROSSENDALE No - LCC No
LCC No - planning regulations in place Applications from Cuadrilla
RIBBLE VALLEY No - LCC No
SOUTH RIBBLE AND BLACKBURN WITH DARWEN – No response
CUMBRIA
CUMBRIA No - No applications
CARLISLE No - dealt with by Cumbria County Council (CCC) No
EDEN No - CCC No
ALLERDALE No - CCC No
BARROW, COPELAND AND SOUTH LAKELAND – No response
MERSEYSIDE
KNOWSLEY No - dealt with on merit No
WIRRAL Against No
LIVERPOOL No - low probability of fracking operations being proposed No
ST HELENS No No
SEFTON AND HALTON – No response
CHESHIRE
CHESHIRE EAST Against No
WARRINGTON, CHESHIRE WEST AND CHESTER – No response
COUNCIL DRILLINGAPPLICATIONPOSITION
COUNCIL POLICY ON FRACKING PROPOSALS
AGENDA