Resumen de Fracking industry battles for UK's hearts and minds
Matt Lambert, Cuadrilla's director of government affairs, accepted that the company "didn't get in early enough" to bring the public on board with its operations in Sussex and "paid the price in terms of community confidence".
"It seems to me there are two types of protestors," one delegate active in the industry told IM. "Local communities and environmental activists. We can persuade the former, but we'll never be able to win over the latter." The industry remains optimistic that communities will embrace fracking as a necessary advance in technology. Ken Cronin, CEO of UKOOG, cited the example of mobile phone masts two decades ago - at one point, they had a 3% approval rating, he said, but now we couldn't imagine a situation without them. Cronin said that UKOOG's experience was that "people don't want to be fed information, they actually want to be able to come and ask questions". He said that a market square consultancy process run by the organisation had helped in this regard, providing expert answers to public concerns relating to energy usage, health and climate change.
