The Midlands could be hit by a wave of protests over fracking as it emerged the region is at the centre of a number of applications for controversial shale gas mining.

As a stand-off continues in Balcombe between anti-fracking demonstrators and Lichfield-based drilling firm Cuadrilla, environmentalists in the Midlands fear the “dash for gas” could be getting closer to home.

The Frack Off campaign shows that applications have been made for petroleum exploration and production licences just north of Lichfield, west of Penkridge, north of Telford, surrounding Stafford and reaching up to Stoke-on-Trent.

Two new groups have formed to fight applications they are expecting to be made in Birmingham’s greenbelt and a new group in Warwickshire is opposing plans for underground coal gasification in both the south of the county (east of Leamington) and the north (near the former Daw Mill colliery in Arley).

Ugly scenes this week hit Cuadrilla’s Lichfield HQ, where demonstrators broke into the offices chaining themselves to filing cabinets, and police forcibly removed them, arresting a 36-year-old woman from Middlesex on suspicion of aggravated trespass.

The Midland drilling ‘threat’ has now led to the formation of local groups Gasfield-free Birmingham, Frack-free Birmingham and No UCG (underground coal gasification) Warwickshire.

The Conservatives are surging ahead with support for the process, with Chancellor George Osborne offering tax-breaks for fracking.

The only fracking project to be carried out on UK soil so far was near Blackpool, Lancashire, two years ago and it caused two minor earthquakes, sparking a wave of local opposition.

David Elmes, academic director of Warwick University’s Warwick Global Energy MBA, said he wants to see industry and regulators working together to tackle significant concerns about the environmental impacts of fracking – a process that has been banned in France.

He says: “There are reasons why shale gas in the US was economically successful and some of those aren’t repeatable here in the UK.

“So I’m not suggesting that just because it worked there it will work here.

“The challenge is that this technology developed early on with small, local companies and then bigger corporations and it’s true to say that environmental controls and understanding as to how to do this safely have taken time to develop.

“The question today is if this technology is to be used in the UK, have the lessons been learned from the US experience?

“Is it an acceptable practice to carry out in the UK where we are much more densely populated?”

Martin Stott, national policy adviser on minerals planning for the Royal Town Planning Institute and member of the University of Birmingham’s Institute for Local Government Studies, predicts that Conservative strategists would find themselves in hot water with rural communities, where voters, already feeling let down by plans for HS2 and the previously proposed sell-off of forests, have gravitated towards UKIP and the Green Party.

Mr Stott said: “I think the government has actually been very foolish.

“It’s a classic example of people at the top of government – David Cameron in particular – being real cheerleaders for an issue and losing touch with reality, and in electoral terms it’s disastrous.

“With substantial tax-breaks being offered, fracking seems to be getting a particularly favourable deal.

“But in areas of Lancashire that are currently being explored, around Preston and Blackpool, there’s a quite powerful hostility with a group called ‘Don’t Frack with the Fylde’.

“I would be surprised if people in the Midlands didn’t take a similar point of view. In North Dakota fracking may be OK but north and south Warwickshire isn’t North Dakota.

“There’s already a lot of hostility to HS2 in south Warwickshire and I think people will see this as yet another example of the Conservative government having it in for rural areas.”

““There’s absolutely no evidence that the amount of gas produced by fracking will in any way reduce gas prices.

“Indeed, the government’s own forecasts suggest gas prices will continue to rise until 2030, so either those are wrong and the rhetoric’s correct or the rhetoric’s wrong – but they can’t both be right.”

Mr Stott added: “I can and do take a dispassionate and objective view about most issues but, about this, I can’t help but share my personal opinion. I have two young daughters. What sort of environment and planet are we going to leave for them if we go down this path?”

The Government’s adviser on fuel poverty has warned that protesters risk worsening the financial situation of millions of people struggling to pay their fuel bills.

In a statement Cuadrilla condemned illegal direct action against its staff and operations. Employees and the teams supporting the company’s operations knew that what they were doing was “legal, approved and safe, and that shale gas is essential to improve our energy security, heat our homes, and create jobs and growth”, it said.

“Cuadrilla is rightly held accountable for complying with multiple planning and environmental permits and conditions, which we have met and will continue to meet.

“Clearly we are held to one set of legally enforceable standards while some protesters believe that they can set out and follow their own.”

Fracking Factfile

* Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique designed to recover gas and oil from shale rock.

* Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a highpressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside.

* Water, sand and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure which allows the gas to flow out to the head of the well.

* There are environmental concerns about whether the process can cause small earth tremors. Two small earthquakes of 1.5 and 2.2 magnitude hit the Blackpool area in 2011 following fracking.

* Worries have also been raised about groundwater pollution from chemicals used in the process.