ANTI-FRACKING campaigners set up a new protest camp in Lancashire yesterday as profit-hungry drilling firms set up more operations using the controversial process.

Activists are mobilising for a 1,000-strong anti-fracking training camp and day of action in the county.

In the early hours of yesterday morning 25 mainly women protesters from the Blackpool area established a “protection camp” in a field earmarked for development by shale gas industry operators Cuadrilla.

The group said they had “tried all lawful methods available” to them over the past three years to stop fracking and direct action was now a “matter of necessity.”

The protest is the latest in a series that have sprung up across northern England as companies seek to cash in on government support.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves shattering rock strata by forcing in a toxic mix of water, sand and chemicals to release gas. Opponents say environmental risks include water and air pollution.

The process is banned in Bulgaria, France, Germany and Luxembourg.

Lancashire has six exploratory sites but there are plans for dozens more.

“Protection” camps have sprung up across the Pennines in Yorkshire, where they have been established outside Beverley in the east of the county.

Public outcry over the process is increasing. Only a few hours after the latest camp was set up in Blackpool, 14,000 letters objecting to a Cuadrilla planning application were handed in to Lancashire County Council offices in Preston by campaigners from Frack Free Lancashire, a coalition of local anti-fracking groups.

And national group Reclaim the Power plans to establish a six-day camp occupied by 1,000 people in the Blackpool area next week to support local groups through training and workshops, plus a day of action against Cuadrilla and its partners.

A Frack Free Lancashire spokeswoman said: “There has been massive growth in resistance here in Lancashire as well as across the UK and, despite this, our government continues to push for fracking.

“We have done our research, spoken to those living in places across the world where fracking has already caused untold harm and come to the conclusion that this is an industry we will not have near our families.

“We don’t do this lightly. It is an awful thing to have to do but it is now a matter of self-defence.”

The new protest group includes campaigners from from Garstang Against Fracking, Frack Free Fylde, Fleetwood Folk Say No to Fracking, Residents’ Action on Fylde Fracking, Longridge Against Fracking, Keep East Lancashire Frack Free, Thornton Unites against Fylde Fracking, Frack Free Blackpool, Frack Free Creators — Knitting Nannas Lancashire as well as residents from near the proposed site.