There are few reasons to think advancing the shale natural gas agenda in the United Kingdom will hurt land values, a government spokesman said Monday.

The British shale natural gas campaign is in its infancy, though the government said imports could be reduced dramatically if the fledgling sector succeeds.

The British National Farmers Union, which represents the business interests of nearly 50,000 groups across the agricultural sector, says land values could be reduced simply because of the negative attitudes toward hydraulic fracturing.

A spokesman for the British Department of Energy and Climate Change said other sectors of the economy are seeing few adverse impacts from underground cables or other infrastructure associated with conventional energy.

"Of over half a century of oil and gas production in the United Kingdom, there has been no evidence that house prices have been impacted and there should be reason for this to change for shale gas," DECC said.

Jonathan Scurlock, chief adviser for the NFU, said the group wants assurances nonetheless. Current policy regimes, he said, give the appearance that "landowner interests are being brushed aside," he told The Telegraph newspaper in London.