ANTI-FRACKING activists voiced alarm yesterday as the coalition put a vast chunk of Britain up for grabs to onshore drilling firms.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change’s latest oil and gas licensing round has opened up some 20,000 square kilometres across central and southern Scotland alone — more than a quarter of the country — to companies seeking “unconventional fossil fuel exploitation,” with further sites in the north and south of England.

The controversial technique of shale fracturing or “fracking” cracks open the bedrock with high-pressure blasts of chemical solvent to release underground gas deposits; the related practice of coal-bed methane extraction drains away groundwater to help haul gas to the surface.