Anti-fracking protesters blockaded a drilling site near Horley in Surrey yesterday to prevent a dismantled drilling rig from being transferred to another experimental site.

One protester “locked” himself onto a tanker to prevent it leaving the site.

Others chained themselves together in front of the site gates.

The drill eventually left.

Dozens of protest groups and camps have been set up at sites across Britain in protest against hydraulic fracturing, which involves pumping vast amounts of water and chemicals into layers of shale to release gas.

Darius Assassi from Frack Free Horsham District and Britain and Ireland Frack Free (Biff) said: “If this industry is not stopped, rigs could be coming to villages all over the UK very soon.

“Let us not leave it all to a few selfless human beings to be all that is standing between our families, our ecology and the abomination of ecocidal unconventional energy exploitation.”