Ineos is encountering increasing resistance from UK landowners in its drive to begin seismic testing as a prelude to shale gas exploration and has begun offering cash bonuses not only to local communities but also to individuals.

UK –based Ineos Shale, subsidiary of the Swiss-headquartered group, which holds the largest number of shale exploration licencses in Britain, has written to farmers and other property owners in the northwest Cheshire-North Yorkshire area, offering cash for permission to carry out seismic survey on their land.

Reports say the company is offering rewards of £500 for allowing a six-month survey, plus an additional bonus if a farmer signs an agreement by a certain date. Other promises include paying 50 pence per square mile of land used for storing equipment and a pledge to restore the land to its condition before the testing began.

In its communications, Ineos explains that the survey would entail marking out the ground, placing receivers at intervals and making a series of vibration sweeps or drilling shot holes. A golf club in North Yorkshire reportedly rejected an Ineos offer of £1,000 for access, fearing damage to the grounds.

Landowners have also received communications from fracking opponents such as the environmental campaign group Ryedale Farmers Against Fracking.  Calling the surveys “only the first step” toward fracking, which will mean destruction of the landscape, the group urges mass refusal of the Ineos proposals.

The Ryedale campaigners say the company’s approach to farmers resembles that of high power salesmen. Ineos, however, denies that it is exerting pressure.

Another opposition group, Concerned Farmers of Yorkshire, has advised property owners that if they refuse to allow drilling  on their land, exploration companies nonetheless can sue for access, as Ineos has done with the National Trust.  This process can buy time, however, holding up drilling “for many months, if not years,” it says.

According to a chartered surveyor in North Yorkshire, who is advising farmers on the Ineos proposal, about a third of the compan’s clients oppose fracking at all costs, another third wants to accept the offer as “money for nothing,” while the remainder is undecided.

Some of those who would like to accept the money are said to be afraid to sign up and stand in opposition to their local communities, the surveyor said.