The latest Department for Energy & Climate Change public attitudes report shows that there is little support for fracking and that support is falling. Comparatively, support for onshore wind is high – although this is not even mentioned by the Government in the report summary!

Only 19% of interviewees expressed support for Fracking with 31% opposing, whereas for onshore wind the support figure was 69% with only 9% opposing.

Findings from the seventeenth quarterly wave of the DECC Public Attitudes Tracking Survey were released on 28th April 16. The data used face-to-face in-home interviews with a representative sample of 2,105 households in the UK.

81% expressed support for the use of renewables. Opposition to renewables was very low at 4% with only 2% opposing it.

The survey also highlighted concerns that the UK Government is not investing fast enough in alternative sources of energy (up from 63-66%), and that fossil fuel supply is not sufficient for UK needs (up from 57%- 60%).

Notwithstanding these results the government continues to encourage a strong regulatory regime for fracking exploratory activities. Indeed, the Infrastructure Act 2015 simplified the procedure for obtaining the right to use underground land 300 metres and below for the purpose of exploiting oil and gas, thereby giving fracking a much needed leg up in the energy arena.