Lord John Browne of Madingly

Government’s lead non executive director on business in the Cabinet Office (appointed by Francis Maude), director of Riverstone Europe LLP and chairman of the board of Cuadrilla Resources Holdings Ltd. Former CEO of BP. Riverstone is a major investor in Cuadrilla Resources Holdings Ltd.

David Cameron

He said: “Britain can’t afford to miss out on shale gas” It has “real potential to bring energy bills down”

David Cameron’s spokesman

He refused to say whether David Cameron would be happy to see fracking near his country home in Oxfordshire

Michael Fallon MP

Minister for Energy and Business

He said “We are going to see how thick their rectory walls are , whether they like the flaring at the end of the drive. “We will only allow fracking if it is safe and fully protects the environment….The potential prize is hughe: cheaper bills for everybody and a reduced dependence on expensively imported gas and oil rom the ret of the world

Louise Goldsmith

Leader of West Sussex County Council

She said: “I am very sorry for the disruption that you have experienced over the past couple of weeks from protestors

John Haynes

David Cameron’s advisor

He said: Granting planning permission for shale gas exploitation will remain with local councils

Lord Howell

Chair of Winsor Energy Group, former Government advisor on energy policy, father-in-law of George Osborne

He said “There are large and uninhabited and desolate areas. Certainly in part of the north east where there’s plenty of room for fracking, well away from anybody’s residence, where we could conduct without any kind of threat to the rural environment.”

Sir David King

Government’s former scientific advisor

He said: “careful regulation needed” “”We are going to need to sink something like a thousand or two thousand wells a year in the short term” “We will need to wean ourselves off gas. My worry is that we will put off the alternative technologies”

Caroline Lucas MP

Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion. Visited the camp outside the site entrance. Opposes fracking.

She said: There are no good reasons for fracking “The vast majority of fossil fuels should be left underground if the world is to have any chance of avoiding two degrees of warming. “

Francis Maude MP

MP for Horsham, which includes Balcombe and Cabinet Office Minister

He said: “Balcombe is unlikely to be the place where they would choose to it [fracking] from. “No one is suggesting that those requirements [on water supply and environmental protection] are short-circuited.” “None of the people who have been arrested in some of the unhappy scenes that we have seen at Balcombe are people from the village itself or indeed from the locality”

Rodney Saunders

Vice chair of Balcombe Parish Council

Alison Stevenson

Chair of Balcombe Parish Council

She said: “We didn’t feel the need to object to it [Cuadrilla’s planning application] or to take the matter any further. I fully accept now that this was a bad judgement call. We’re as gutted as anybody else.” If the No Dash for Gas group is coming here in the full knowledge that it intends to break the law then it should stay away.”

Keith Taylor MEP

MEP for South East England

He checked on early drilling at Cuadrilla site, which was for a groundwater monitoring borehole. Concern about use of force by police during arrests outside the site.

Tim Yeo MP

Former chair of the Energy Select Committee

He said “one of the difficult things for the Government is the balance of how strong the planning guidance should be to compel local communities to accept it” [fracking]