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Homes hit by fracking could receive thousands of pounds in payouts instead of the money going to councils, but it is all a bit wishy-washy at the moment.

George Osborne set up a fund for money to be taken out of fracking profits so that councils could spend it in their area. It would be a top-up fund free of interference from government. So far, so good.

Unfortunately there were few numbers revealed except that the fund would be "up to" 10% of profits. Now we are being told that between 500 and 2,000 households would receive cash and that it "could be" up to £10,000 each. With so many "up tos" and "could bes" the payments could be anything. It is also not clear whether the payments will be a one-off or ongoing.

The highest payment mentioned, £10,000, will in no way cover the loss of value of a property within the affected area so with a bit of luck the "bribe" will not work. The scheme also opens up the door to others seeking compensation from the likes of HS2, runways, new roads, new power stations and so on. How will their compo be worked out?

HS2 compo? free train tickets

power stations ,free electric for 6 months a year

runways ?

roads? non payment of tolls on motorways

HS2 compo? free train tickets

No good if you do not use trains

power stations ,free electric for 6 months a year

Have to be using shed loads of electricity to make it pay and that's not good for the environment

runways ?

A free private jet to use any time, or maybe not

roads? non payment of tolls on motorways

Hardly any tolls on UK motorways

How about some joined up thinking on energy security and keeping the lights on in the long term.

Or maybe we could frack the Home Counties, which is where the largest reserves are. The problem there is that the profits would never cover the compo as too many people would be affected, and very few would accept a kick-back of £10,000 or even £100,000 to cover losses.

If they are proposing to pay compensation of this magnitude, they must be some doubts
regarding the possible adverse effects of fracking to residents.

I think the whole business is stupid. There are surely other methods of producing energy
that will not exacerbate the global warming that is threatening mankind.

There certainly are.

However we're in this little trap. We currently use all the electricity we generate and buy more in from abroad. We use twice as much carbon fuels (vehicles, trains, ships, gas for cooking and ch), as we do electricity.

So if we were to cut off gas and oil we'd have to triple our current electricity generating and, right now, that is being stripped to the bone because half of what we do generate is generated with fossil fuels...

So Fracking is a resource which makes us energy independent from the middle east and Russia. Oh and I didn't even mention lubricants and all the oil we use in manufacturing (plastics etc).

Nobody ever tells the whole truth as to why they are doing things. Our renewable infrastructure would have to, quite literally, carpet the land and the sea, using the current technologies they use, just to replace half our fossil fuel dependency.

Those arguments are two sides of the same coin.

For decades the UK has neglected energy production and security. We have closed coal fired power stations and not replaced them, or nuclear, with modern plants. We (or rather politicians) have coasted along hoping that solar and intermittent wind would hold the line till the next big fix came along.

That big fix now looks to be shale gas. It might help to reduce our CO2 emissions, but is can also damage the physical environment. The bribes, as Aggers points out, are a de facto admission that fracking is not as safe as houses. I also guess that when insurance companies see that a home is getting these payments the cost of insurance will go up, so the value of the bribes will go down.

We need to be looking to the future of energy production and taking steps to achieve it, but my guess is that we will wait for the next big fix to come along by a fluke........ Shale gas Mk2 anyone?