The gas development firm is appealing against Lancashire County Council’s decision to refuse planning permission to explore for shale gas at both of the sites, and civil servants have expressed concern that the appeal process may not conclude until November 2016 at the earliest.
The government introduced new measures in August, including identifying councils which repeatedly fail to determine applications within the 16-week statutory timeframe, with subsequent applications potentially decided by the communities secretary.
A letter, signed on behalf of Clark, said: “The secretary of state hereby directs that he shall determine these appeals instead of an inspector. This means that instead of writing a decision, the inspector will prepare a report and recommendation, which will be forwarded to the secretary of state.
“The reason for this direction is because the drilling appeals involve proposals for exploring and developing shale gas which amount to proposals for development of major importance having more than local significance and proposals which raise important or novel issues of development control, and/or legal difficulties.
“The monitoring appeals are being considered at the same time as the drilling appeals and will be most efficiently and effectively determined by the secretary of state. These two appeals are therefore being recovered because of the particular circumstances.”
A Cuadrilla spokesperson said the firm “notes the decision” of the secretary of state to decide the appeals after the planning inspector has conducted the public inquiry and produced a report and recommendations. “This is part of the long established planning process and we look forward to presenting our case at the public inquiry commencing in February,” they added.
The Council said it was “extremely disappointed” by the announcement.
“These decisions are of great interest and importance to many people in Lancashire and ultimately this letter means those decisions will now be made by a lone politician in London,” said council leader Jennifer Mein.
“The county council went to great lengths to thoroughly consider these applications and councillors made their decisions based on a huge amount of evidence both for and against each application.
“When the appeals were lodged it already meant that the decisions would be taken out of the hands out of elected representatives here in Lancashire. The difference now is that, rather than being determined by an impartial planning inspector, they will be determined by a minister in a government which has already made its views on shale gas very clear.”
The Council continued, urging the secretary of state to “properly consider the information put before him” and demonstrate that he has listened to people’s views “whether they are for or against”.
The Tory government has been widely recognised as a staunch supporter of shale gas exploration since Prime Minister David Cameron’s now-famous line “we’re going all out for shale gas”.
Chancellor George Osborne reiterated support in his Autumn Statement this week, saying the Treasury would double spending on energy research with a large proportion of this supporting the creation of the shale gas industry.
As well as Cuadrilla’s application, two other firms have fracking applications under review in the UK.
IGas first made known its intentions to explore for shale gas in Nottinghamshire in May, having submitted a scoping request. In August, it applied for planning permission to monitor groundwater across four locations near Springs Road, which was announced delayed last month. The firm has also applied to drill exploratory shale gas wells at the same site.
Also under review is a separate scoping request for a site at Tinker Lane near Blyth in Nottinghamshire.
And Third Energy has an application to frack its existing KM8 well, an extension of its operations in Ryedale, North Yorkshire. The application has been delayed after North Yorkshire County Council announced it had launched a further re-consultation period of 21 days.