Even before the arrest yesterday of the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas – for illegally blocking the entry to the drilling site, along with other protesters – it was clear that any rational debate [about shale gas exploration] had been drowned out by a shrieking chorus of environmental zealots, anti-capitalist activists and plain old Left-wing eccentrics, Daily Telegraph 20 August 2013

The grassroots protests in the village of Balcombe against fracking have sparked a countrywide rebellion as villages up and down the country vow they will also blockade any attempts to drill. Daily Telegraph 29 Jul 2013

The patience of rural Britain is now wearing thin. More and more local people are mobilising against increasing incursions from inappropriate housing developments, wind farms, shale-gas exploration, HS2 and a massive new road-building programme. Indeed, the conflict hit a new peak yesterday with the arrest of protesters at a potential fracking site near Balcombe, West Sussex. Daily Telegraph 26 July 2013