Today’s Times newspaper:

…”Britain is set to fire up a big expansion of the fracking industry, handing out dozens of new drilling licences and fast-tracking planning decisions despite intense public opposition to the practice.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change will reveal next week the winners in an auction for dozens of shale gas exploration blocks, including swathes of southern England and heavily populated areas of Lancashire and the northeast.
About 95 companies are understood to have submitted bids for nearly 300 drilling licences, spanning more than 40 per cent of the UK’s land area. …”