12th August 2014

The latest government survey of public attitudes to fracking has shown a fall in support.

The Public Attitudes Tracker, commissioned by Department of Energy and Climate Change and published today, reveals under a quarter of respondents supported shale gas extraction.

The latest figure of 24% is a decline on previous Tracker surveys. In March 2014 support stood at 29% and in December 2013 it was 28%.

Today’s result is markedly different from one published yesterday by the UK Onshore Operators’ Group. Its research by Populus found 57% of respondents thought shale gas should be exploited in the UK. More details

Other results

Today’s DECC survey also showed that 24% of respondents opposed shale gas extraction by fracking. This figure is also down on the previous Tracker survey, which put opposition at 27% in March 2014.

The proportion of people who said they neither support or oppose has risen from 44% in March to 47% in the latest survey.

DECC said the question about shale gas and oil was introduced in December 2013 and it did not “yet have sufficient data to consider long term trends”.

2,087 people took part in face-face in-home interviews from 25-29 June 2014. The questions about fracking were part of the TNS Omnibus questionnaire.

DECC Public Attitudes Tracker Wave 10