Protesters shaken and stirred by tremors

Some say Lancashire will be the next Texas, with gas wells triggering an economic boom. Others fear it could be more like California after a report confirmed that two minor earthquakes that hit Blackpool were caused by gas extraction.

Fracking, which blasts a mix of water and chemicals at underground rocks to crack them and release the gas inside, is big business in the US and credited with providing cheap gas and a jobs bonanza.

An area between Southport, Blackpool and Preston has some of the UK’s most promising resources and is the only place where fracking has occurred.

Philip Mitchell, of Blackpool and Fylde Green party, said: “There is a lot of anger. People were shaken in their beds. A lot of people come here to retire and don’t want this kind of disturbance.”

But the arrival of Caudrilla’s tall exploration rig, which has sprouted in a cabbage field at Hesketh Banks, has caused tremors of many kinds.

On Wednesday, coinciding with the release of a Caudrilla-commissioned report into the seismic activity, several protesters cut through the fence around the site and scaled the drilling rig. By the end of the day Lancashire police said only two were left at the top. A 60-year-old woman from Liverpool was arrested for aggravated trespass.

Opponents are predominantly a mix of dreadlocked ecowarriors and pensioners worried about damage to their houses, and pollution of the water supply.

Ribble Estuary Against Fracking, a residents’ group set up a few weeks ago, is hosting information evenings in village halls and hotels. Fylde borough council has responded by setting up a task force to decide if shale gas is “a good thing or not”, though it has little power over the industry.

Eve McNamara, an accountant with a local farming company, and REAF member, said many people felt the technology was too new and unproven to try without a new regulatory framework for it. Locals also fear the impact on the environment and possible crop contamination leading to lost supermarket orders, she said.

Mark Miller, Cuadrilla’s American chief executive, said the company would continue to reassure local people. He spends as much time in fields and village halls as behind his desk in an unremitting charm offensive.

“It will be weeks before we restart operations,” he said. “We are not going to proceed until we have had time spent talking to local councils and people.”

Stefan Baish, a seismologist and co-author of the report, said there was a 0.01 per cent chance of a repeat. “Similar operations have been carried out more than one million times and there have only been two case where similar seismic reactions were recorded.”

With unemployment in the area running high, Cuadrilla continues to play its trump card: work.

It says it hundreds of wells could provide 1,700 jobs. It is just taking on 10 trainees. There were 140 applications.