The Telegraph: Balcombe's eco-warriors have the limelight
Balcombe's eco-warriors have the limelight, but a strong local contingent wants to be heard
Charles Metcalfe is no eco-warrior. He’s a wine critic who used to be on the telly. On the way home to his sleepy village in Sussex one day, he got a nasty shock.
“I was reading the Telegraph on the train and I noticed a little paragraph saying, 'Cuadrilla to Frack in Sussex’. I knew this was the company that caused the earthquakes in Lancashire, so I thought, 'How interesting’. Then I looked down the story and saw they were coming to my village...”
He smiles and steps out of the way as a battalion of police officers comes past. We are on the road just south of Balcombe in West Sussex, where the oil and gas company Cuadrilla is trying to drill a well, and has sparked a high-profile protest against fracking.