The government's plans to build a domestic fracking industry received yet another blow today, after the High Court ruled the government's new planning guidance on shale gas development was unlawful.

Justice Dove ruled the government had failed to adequately consider new scientific evidence on fracking's environmental risks when developing the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and as such had failed to carry out a lawful consultation.

The judge rejected separate complaints that the government had failed to consider the impact of the NPPF on the UK's legal greenhouse gas targets and should have published an environmental assessment alongside the new planning strategy.

But Justice Dove ruled that new scientific evidence should have been considered through the consultation process.

The case was brought by the campaign group Talk Fracking, which argued "significant and material developments in the understanding of the greenhouse gas emissions arising from fracking" had not been considered.

Dove ruled the evidence submitted by the campaign group was "obviously material on the basis that it was capable of having a direct bearing upon a key element of the evidence base for the proposed policy and its relationship to climate change effects".

Dr Jonathan Marshall, head of analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) think tank, said the ruling raised signicant questions for the government.

"Natural gas is not a low-carbon fuel, therefore the ruling to call into question governmental claims that it is make sense," he said. "With the UK's electricity system almost free of coal, natural gas is now effectively the most carbon-intensive major source of power. Official advice from the Committee on Climate Change concluded that fracking was only compatible with national decarbonisation targets if the gas produced replaced higher carbon sources of energy. There is little space for this in the power sector, and with transport clearly moving towards electrification rather than LPG, little scope for gas use to expand there either."

Fracking developers and the government maintain that domestically produced gas could boast lower emissions than imported gas and could play a major role in meeting demand from the heat network and industrial processes.

However, critics maintain that concerns over the potential for methane leaks have not been adequately addressed and also warn that new fracking infrastructure could become stranded assets as the UK decarbonises.

The ruling comes as Greenpeace's Unearthed site today reported that on the day it released a significant amount of methane into the atmosphere, fracking firm Cuadrilla's air monitoring equipment suddenly stopped working.

A Cuadrilla spokesman told the website that the levels of methane released at the company's site "are very small compared to a wide range of other industrial and natural sources".

The company added that it "has a very robust leak detection programme in place which has been inspected and audited by the Environment Agency". The instrument malfunction occurred on the afternoon of January 14th and led to a data gap of around 22 hours.