Will Reform UK councillors continue to oppose Lancashire fracking under pressure from Tice and Farage?

PLUS: A hero plumber and the Pride of Britain, James Depher has a number of complaints upheld against his company's activity

Hello and welcome to The Lancashire Lead.

Imagine being the Reform UK politicians at County Hall doing your best to dampen disquiet about the potential for fracking to return to Lancashire, then Richard Tice not only doubles down, but launches the world’s clumsiest metaphor and compares tremors to dropping a melon.

This isn’t what Lancashire County Council want to be focusing on right now. While the search for savings at the cut-to-the-bone authority continues, civic pride is on the agenda. War memorials will be cleaned (with a nice specific mention that areas where councillors will get a photo op in November will be prioritised), along with road signs around the County. Not necessarily roundabouts though, and Cllr Brian Moore suggested this week that a policy is adopted that all white mini-roundabouts adopt the St George’s cross as official policy.

Fracking is a topic that genuinely risks unsettling the support base, even in 2025 when nobody has changed their mind about anything in about a decade. The idea that Reform UK could crack on with fracking even if people in Lancashire don’t want it doesn’t suggest a party that will do things differently when they, as seems more likely with every day, become the UK’s ruling party.

We also report today on the investigation into Britain’s kindest plumber, who has suffered a bit of a fall from grace that can’t really be waved away as naivety.

Reform UK say ‘drill, baby, drill’ even if local supporters don’t like it

Nigel Farage and Andrea Jenkyns. Credit: The Lead

By Luke Beardsworth

Reform deputy leader Richard Tice has poured cold water on reassurances from Lancashire County Council that fracking would not return to Lancashire.

Concerns had been raised earlier after Tice said that it was negligent to not try to extract energy to improve the economy, with leader Nigel Farage reported as telling energy firms to get ready to ‘drill, baby, drill’.

The Preston New Road site in Lancashire became home to semi-permanent protests after the Conservatives gave the green light for test drilling by Cuadrilla in October 2016.

A national ban was imposed after a series of tremors at the Little Plumpton site - with one measuring 2.9 on the Richter scale.

On one hand, the Reform-led Lancashire County Council said the conditions in Lancashire were ‘not conducive to fracking, and there are no plans for it to take place here’. It was a recommitment on an issue that came up during campaigning for the local elections in May 2025.

But on the other, Reform UK’s most prolific Lancashire donor, the AFC Fylde chairman Andy Haythornthwaite, said he wants to see fracking return even if it’s at the previous site, as the Lancashire Lead revealed last week.

Tice’s latest comments put the local Reform UK party at odds with the national party.

He mocked: "In Lancashire, yes, there was an issue, but when you talk about an earthquake, if you move your chair back and stand up, you've created an earthquake - about 0.5 on the Richter scale.

"Don't be ridiculous, that's not an earthquake, that's standing up and moving your chair!

"If you stand up and drop a melon from your shoulder-height, and that hits the ground, you create a seismicity of 2.0.

"That is not an earthquake - that's the equivalent of a bus going past your door. Get real!"

Clive Grunshaw, Labour’s police and crime commissioner for Lancashire, said: “Last time we had Cuadrilla in Fylde the policing operation cost many millions; and it abstracted officers from their much-needed duties elsewhere in the County.

“Whilst I did manage to recover much of the financial cost from the last government it is impossible to recover the time police officers and staff spent at Preston New Road.

“The public of Lancashire repeatedly tell me that they want me to rebuild neighbourhood policing. That is exactly what I am trying to do!

“We need our police fighting crime and keeping the people of Lancashire safe. We don’t want them bogged down protecting an industry that no one locally supports.”

Nick Danby, of Frack Free Lancashire, said Reform UK would face “massive and sustained opposition, both nationally and locally, if they try to resurrect fracking”.

He said: “Let nobody forget that the fracking activity at the Preston New Road site caused numerous earthquake tremors – exactly as we predicted.

“We need to embrace greener and cleaner energy as a matter of urgency. Climate change is very real and to deny this is grossly irresponsible.”

It is not the first time the issue of fracking has pitched local party against national party - but it is a test of whether county councillors will back Lancashire over Farage and Tice.

The Conservatives were placed in the same position when they were in control of Lancashire County Council. They are a diminished force at County Hall in 2025, but their leader questioned whether those councillors will continue to rebel.

Cllr Aidy Riggott said: “Once again confusion reigns on another Reform policy, this time on fracking. Nationally their policy is ‘drill, baby, drill’, yet locally it depends on who you talk to it seems, as to what the answer is. Some Reform County Councillors seem to be against it, whereas their biggest local backer in Fylde is openly fully signed up to fracking.

“We all know it is rare, almost unheard of, for Nigel Farage and Richard Tice to bow down to anyone else’s views, so I suspect before long Reform Councillors will be receiving their marching orders and will dutifully be singing the party line of ‘drill, baby, drill’ too.

“Given the strength of feeling and the impact of fracking on local communities right across the Fylde coast, I have long been of the view that local people should have the final say about whether fracking happens in their area and nothing has changed my mind since we set that policy when we ran the County Council.”

---

One-time Pride of Britain winner slammed by investigation into fundraising activity

By Jamie Lopez

A so-called hero plumber who received millions of pounds in donations to help elderly people has refused to engage with the Fundraising Regulator (FR) during or after an investigation.