Speaking at a fringe event of the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, Tim Yeo said that awarding community benefits is the “right way” to get local communities to accept the development of fracking wells.
He said: “It’s a perfectly safe technology and communities are very fearful and we need, frankly, to bribe them into getting one or two going and then that fear would be removed.”
The comments came after Ineos offered local communities living above a shale gas well benefits of up to 6 per cent of the revenue.
Currently, government regulation states that developers must award local communities £100,000 in benefits for each well drilled, and a total of 1 per cent of the revenue generated from the gas produced at each well.
Yeo added that benefits awarded to communities hosting fracking wells, as well as other energy infrastructure projects, would continue to be best dealt with via local planning decisions.
The ECCC chair also slammed the Conservative’s manifesto pledge to prevent any new onshore wind projects being developed.
Yeo said: “Local communities should have the final decision on whether wind turbines are built within sight or sound of their homes or businesses.
“We should not have a blanket policy of ruling out onshore wind – that would be completely irrational.”
Simon Moore, senior research fellow for the environment and energy at Policy Exchange, agreed that communities need to have a larger input into the development of energy projects, as well as benefits from hosting them.
He said: “Incentives to encourage local communities to accept these things is favourable imposing these things from the top.
“The nature of any compensation should respond to the individual circumstances of each project, and the details and negotiations should be kept between developer and community.”