UK Minister Hints at Payment for Residents of Fracking Sites

People living in areas identified for possible hydraulic fracturing should receive a payment, a British government minister has said.

Newspaper The Guardian says that John Hayes, the junior minister at the Department of Environment and Climate Change, made the proposal in an interview.

He said it was "absolutely" right for communities to expect incentives, pointing to similar proposals for people living near windfarms and nuclear reactors.

"[Shale] should be safe and secure and the community thoroughly engaged. We certainly need to think more about the benefits to communities and I want us to have a whole range of technologies – nuclear, wind, shale – all will receive benefits as appropriate," he said.

 An environment ministry spokesman said incentives would be offered but the form they would take and who would pay for them had yet to be decided. The question is whether the government would dip into its coffers to encourage such energy development, or the companies which undertake hydraulic fracturing.

In the UK the pioneer in this is Cuadrilla Resources. The company, which had been developing sites to mine shale gas in Lancashire, announced last week that it was suspending operations until next year. Chief executive Francis Egan said the postponement was to allow the completion of an environmental impact study.

During the Guardian interview, Hayes also said it could be more than 10 years before fracking took place on any serious scale in the UK. The process is controversial in Britain, with some environmental campaigners deeply opposed.