Green MP Caroline Lucas accused Con-Dem ministers of having “something to hide” over fracking yesterday after an impact report was released with large sections censored.

Ms Lucas told the government to be “straight with the British public” about the damage drilling could cause on the countryside. 

She issued the challenge after its official analysis, Shale Gas: Rural Economy Impacts, was published in a heavily redacted format. 

Expert assessments of fracking’s impact on house prices and local services were blanked out in the draft report for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Ms Lucas said it “adds to the atmosphere of public concern and mistrust” and demanded the department immediately publish all the information.

“What I’m concerned about is it looks as if the government has got something to hide,” she said. 

“This is a report that purports to be about looking at the impacts of shale gas exploitation on rural economies and yet huge amounts of it have been redacted.

“Were it not so serious, it would almost be comical.”

The report highlights how the values of properties near fracking sites in the US and Canada have crashed by between 3 and 14 per cent. 

But three further paragraphs about the impact on property prices were censored along with information about the impact on local services. 

A government spokeswoman said: “There is no evidence that house prices have been affected in over half a century of oil and gas exploration in the UK or evidence that this would be the case with shale.”