PLANS to give cash pay outs to households in areas of Dorset targeted for fracking have been labelled "a form of bribery".

New plans announced by Theresa May could see residents in areas such as the Piddle Valley receive compensation of thousands of pounds, if the controversial method of extracting gas from the ground is carried out there.

A £1billion shale wealth fund was unveiled by former chancellor George Osborne in November last year, setting aside 10 per cent of the tax proceeds from fracking to benefit communities hosting wells.

Now the Prime Minister is amending the scheme so the money can go direct to residents rather than being given to councils or community trusts to spend, as Mr Osborne planned.

It is expected that the new Fund could deliver as much as £10 million to each community where wells are sited.

Downing Street declined to estimate how much payouts could be worth, but it is thought that individual households could receive between £5,000 and £20,000.

Mrs May said: "The Government I lead will be always be driven by the interests of the many - ordinary families for whom life is harder than many people in politics realise.

"As I said on my first night as Prime Minister: when we take the big calls, we'll think not of the powerful but of you.

"This announcement is an example of putting those principles into action. It's about making sure people personally benefit from economic decisions that are taken - not just councils - and putting them back in control over their lives."

The Piddle Valley, Lytchett Matravers and Corfe Castle are among nine sites suggested by energy companies as potential fracking areas in Dorset.

Peter Barton, who is a member of the West and South Dorset Green Party and on the steering group for Frack Free Dorset, said that the proposal to give communities affected was "fundamentally flawed" and amounted to "a form of bribery".

He added: "It highlights the hypocrisy of a government that has closed down the department for addressing climate change, that has cancelled subsidies for clean renewable energy and has never considered similar contributions to similar households or communities for compensation for renewable forms of energy.

"Yet it is pushing ahead with trying to promote a fossil fuel which is undermining our attempts as a society to make out contribution to addressing climate change."

County councillor for the Three Valleys, which includes the Piddle Valley, Jill Haynes said that she was surprised to see the Piddle Valley being proposed as one of the sites for fracking as she had been told that Dorset did not have anywhere that was suitable for the process.

She said there needs to be more information made available to the public.