Aside from the creation of local jobs and increased investment into Lancashire shale gas exploration, the local community benefits in other ways.

The shale gas industry, through its representative body UK Onshore Oil & Gas (UKOOG), has agreed that operators will pay £100,000 to the community near each shale exploration site, where full planning and regulatory permissions to drill an exploration well have been granted. Cuadrilla has extended this offer and is committed to pay £100,000 to the local community for each well.

Initially we have started drilling two wells at our Preston New Road site in Lancashire, but we have permission to drill up to four. This means that Cuadrilla would pay £400,000 to the local community if all four wells are drilled.

In August 2017 Cuadrilla paid £100,000 for the first well to an independent Community Benefit Fund, managed by the Community Foundation for Lancashire, which will distribute money to community projects local to the Preston New Road shale gas exploration site.

A panel from the local community has been appointed and the first decisions about how these funds are spent will take place later this year.

Following a consultation with the local community on how the £100,000 for the second well should be spent, it was decided that the money should be split proportionately between all households located within one and a half kilometres of the site.

Those households located within 1 kilometre of the centre of the Preston New Road site were each entitled to approximately £2,000 and those located between 1 and 1.5 kilometres entitled to around £150 each.