Fracking faces tough foes in leafy Sussex There has long been resistance to these plans in the North West, where a couple of minor earthquakes two years ago halted exploration. But the British Geological Survey, which produced this week's resource estimates, is now examining the Weald basin in the South East, where protest is spreading. Following Balcombe's lead, local groups are already campaigning across Sussex, in Fernhurst, Cuckfield, Lewes and Forest Row, and more are expected to join them even before exploration gets fully under way. Balcombe has a history of mineral exploitation: some believe its name recalls a Roman "mining place camp," while Conoco drilled unsuccessfully for oil there in the Nineties. It is this old well that Cuadrilla has taken over, where it will look for black gold, rather than gas. It says it will only frack if it finds oil that does not flow freely of its own accord. The villagers are not assuaged, while the parish council feels deceived, having nodded through the scheme under the impression that it just involved reopening the well, without realising that fracking could follow. Everything came to a head after a local school secretary, Vanessa Vine, organised a public meeting. "Someone told me that Balcombe was next in line for fracking after the North West and I felt I had to do something," she says. I asked the lady in the tea shop how I could book the village hall. She told me to go to the lady in the wool shop. So I did, handed over £80 and there it was. Cuadrilla presented its plans at the meeting, in January last year, and ran into a wall of informed opposition, facing fierce questioning from, among others, an environmental scientist specialising in oil and gas, a mining engineer and a catastrophe reinsurer and underwiter. Clearly surprised, the company went quiet and the villagers thought it had gone away. But last month it announced that it was going to drill this summer after all, and the protests reignited. "I don't believe it can be done safely," says Lawrence Dunne, a professor of engineering at London South Bank, who lives in the village. He is worried about air pollution from flaring gas that is produced as a by-product, and of the consequences of an accident at the well, which is just hundreds of yards from the nearest houses. The effects could be felt in the village within two minutes, he says, leaving no time to evacuate. He produces an article from this week's Daily Telegraph reporting on American research that found polluted drinking water in wells near fracking sites in Pennsylvania. He adds that fracking will take place all over Sussex and the Weald and says that people in the South East "don't realise what is facing them." Even enthusiasts admit that the process will involve establishing two-and-a-half-hectare fracking installations every few kilometres: some experts say there would need to be 10 wells in every square mile. Prof Dunne and others have been going from door to door through the village in recent weeks canvassing support. He says he finds nine out of every 10 people are against the plans. It is not difficult to find those who are opposed. Businessman Alan Warburton says he feels the campaign should be stepped up, while 17-year-old Rafe Harris believes the drilling "will not benefit the local area." Government proposals last week to give local communities £100,000 for an exploration well and 1 per cent of revenues get short shrift. The campaigners aim to mobilise so much support that the company will be shamed into leaving, a tactic that they say has worked in Australia. Failing that, they refuse to rule out "non-violent direct action." Their other ploy is to make sure that the regulators enforce all the rules, a drive led by Louisa Delpy, a young mother who showed no interest in the drilling until she saw reporters from a tabloid newspaper in the village interviewing residents a month ago and thought she should do some research. "I started from the position that everything would be fine," she says. But the more I looked into it, the more worried I became. My research threw up many questions about the safety of fracking and drilling and the lack of regulation in the UK covering such activities. Close scrutiny bore fruit last week, when news came through during the tea party protest that Friends of the Earth had forced the Environment Agency to "reappraise" and "tighten up" their approach. As a result, Cuadrilla has had to apply for new permits to operate on the site: the company may not get them in time to finish its investigations before planning permission runs out in September, a serious setback. The episode also raises questions about the effectiveness of the agency. "They are playing catch-up," says Kevin Bottomley, the councillor in the MCC blazer. This is a very conservative place, with both a big and a small C, and people are concerned. Once lost, confidence in the regulator - crucial if fracking is to be widely accepted - will be hard to regain. Though ministers have yet to realise it, the growing revolt is looking much more formidable even than opposition to wind farms, which didn't take off until a long time after turbines began turning. By contrast, the anti-fracking movement is already well on its way, even though significant exploitation isn't expected until the 2020s. This, it seems safe to say, will be no tea party.