Cuadrilla's Fracking Vehicles Took Wrong Turn 115 Times in Three Months, Documents Reveal

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When Communities Secretary Sajid Javid overruled local objections to push ahead with the governmentโ€™s shale gas plans, residents were assured planning conditions placed on fracking company Cuadrilla would be sufficient to minimise disruption to the localย community.

But vehicles making deliveries to Cuadrillaโ€™s Preston New Road site in Lancashire have had to deviate from the agreed route over 100 times during the summer months, data obtained by DeSmog UK through freedom of information requestsย show.

It is not the first time Cuadrilla has forgone its planning permission to further progress at the site. In July, the company breached planning rules to bring its drill onto the site outside of agreed operatingย hours.

A traffic management plan agreed by the local council and Cuadrilla outlines a โ€œpreferred routeโ€ for all traffic, which says it must turn left into and out of theย site.

Daily traffic logs kept by Cuadrilla and sent to Lancashire County Councilโ€™s planning officers โ€” obtained by DeSmog UK through a freedom of information request โ€” show vehicles entered or exited the site by turning right 115 times between May 22 and Augustย 20.

That means almost five percent of the vehicles serving the site took a route other than the agreed โ€˜preferred routeโ€™ over theย period.

The majority of incidentsย occured in the final two weeks of July, coinciding with the final days of a ‘month of action’ at the site, with vehicles turning right 77 times during thatย period.

Claire Stephenson, a spokesperson for campaig group Frack Free Lancashire, called the figuresย โ€œappallingโ€.

She told DeSmog UK the data was โ€œdemonstrable of the non-existent ‘gold-standard, robust’ย regulations that are tediously spun by industry and governmentย figures.โ€

โ€œOne incident could be considered a lapse; over a hundred breaches however, is confirmation that Cuadrilla have no regard for the management plan as they know they will suffer zeroย consequences.โ€

โ€œWe have witnessed serious traffic breaches on a daily basis since January at Preston New Road, where ill-trained or unaware HGV drivers enter the site from the wrong direction or with dangerous driving, causing risk to other roadย users.โ€

Referring to Cuadrillaโ€™s earlier planning breach, she said, โ€what hope do residents have of trusting any regulatory regime that has no power to hold companies toย account?โ€

The traffic management plan requires vehicles to turn left into the site โ€œunless an obstruction is being observedโ€. The plan says that if there is an obstruction, โ€œCuadrilla will consult with the Police and inform Lancashire County Council Highways and Planning departments that a deviation from the preferred agreed route to either right in right out, right in left out or left in right out or a combination of the options as a temporaryย approach.โ€

Cuadrilla sought to amend the planย onย June 12 to clarify that such opbstructions could include, โ€œ1) Blocked entrance preventing a left turn into site; 2) Threat of an obstacle confirmed by the Police; 3) Police instruction; 4) Loads or Abnormal Loads which require a right turn under controlled conditions by theย Policeโ€.

Local campaigners Preston New Road Action Group raised a number of objections to the changes to the plan at the time, reiterating their concerns that โ€œseeking to allow HGVs to turn right into or out of the site is aย hazardโ€.

The amendments were approved by Lancashire County Council on Julyย 26.

A spokesperson for Cuadrilla told DeSmog UK:

โ€œRight in right out turns are authorised when an obstructions in the road is blocking access from the left hand side or road user safety is at risk. Cuadrilla works closely with Lancashire County Council, Highways Department as well as the Police to ensure that our planning conditions are compliedย with.

โ€œAs you are probably aware Cuadrillaโ€™s deliveries have been subject to illegal activity by protestors climbing onto vehicles and blocking the highway on a frequent basis causing disruption to the local community, business and commuters. Subsequently to avoid further disruption the traffic management plan has been varied to allow right turns into and out of site. This variation has been subject to publicย consultation.โ€

The traffic management planย requires Cuadrilla to provide โ€œa record of incidents and issues arising on a daily basisโ€. But on the documents sent to DeSmog UK, no data is provided for May 1 to May 19. There is also no data related to โ€˜incidentsโ€™ prior to Mayย 20.

Cuadrilla told DeSmog UK that after โ€œreviewing our internal log, the data set is up to date. The log is routinely submitted to Lancashire Countyย Council.โ€

Lancashire County Council did not clarify whether it had received the missing data in time forย publication.

Download the traffic log file viaย Scribd.

Main image credit: Mat Hope/DeSmog UK CC0

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Mat was DeSmog's Special Projects and Investigations Editor, and Operations Director of DeSmog UK Ltd. He was DeSmog UKโ€™s Editor from October 2017 to March 2021, having previously been an editor at Nature Climate Change and analyst at Carbon Brief.

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