How fracking could be sent packing by a poor offer for locals

After the noisy protests over oil drilling in Balcombe, you might be forgiven for thinking that there are just two groups in the fracking debate: the Caroline Lucases, who oppose the technique outright, and then those who think shale gas is the best thing we ever discovered, better even than sliced bread. But there is a third group, which is quieter than the others, yet yields a great deal of power over how impressive this country’s shale gas revolution will really turn out to be. I introduce this group of worried locals, still unconvinced by the incentives currently on offer from the government, in my Telegraph column today.

MPs whose constituencies sit on top of the biggest horde of shale found so far are worried that the 1 per cent of shale revenues currently on offer won’t be enough to convince their local councils to approve fracking in their areas. Fracking pads are not big – only around the size of two football pitches – and so they will not have as much of an impact on the local landscape as a wind farm, but councillors sitting on the mineral planning committees approving the exploitation of shale gas will want to be sure that their areas will benefit from these developments, rather than the Treasury filling its coffers with tax revenues that are then spent on Crossrail.