Measures to fast-track planning applications for fracking the controversial method of drilling for gas. The government will have the power to decide whether to approve applications if local authorities are taking too long to process them. Tom Taurar reports. Hello, I'm like you. Two years ago, Green MP Caroline Lucas felt so strongly about a planned fracking site in Sussex. She demonstrated until arrested. Today, the government gave itself new controversial powers to fast-track applications to drill for gas. Prompting fears fracking will be more likely to take place in our region. This will be an encouragement to all shale gas companies. They'll come forward with more applications. We don't want government stepping in and saying yes, it's all over. Give them a license. Fracking occurs thousands of feet underground with a drill turning into the rock, explosions causing fractures, before a cocktail of water, sand and chemicals are pumped into the cracks at high pressure and the gas is extracted. Geologists say hundreds of square miles of our area could have gas beneath them, although no one is sure if that gas can be extracted. Some environmentalists say whether the gas is there or not, we shouldn't touch it. Rists of contamination of water and little of the traffic and noise that's associated with those sites, even if all those issues could be sold, it's still a fossil fuel and it's still going to contribute to CO2 emissions. The government's speeding up the planning process because it believes the UK shale gas industry could help secure our future energy supply. Over the course of the last two years we've seen planning decision timescales increase from three to four months to well over 12 months. That's not good for us, it's not good for the communities concerned and it's certainly not good for the nation with respect to gas usage. Local people can currently ban wind farms on their doorstep. Today those same people potentially lost the influence over fracking. Tom Terrell, BBC, South.