As someone who was present at last year’s protest at Balcombe, I am in a good position to answer the questions posed by Peter Chapman (Letters, April 9) with regard to policing costs incurred there.

Firstly Mr Chapman seems under the impression that all the protesters were in receipt of some benefit payments.

Nothing could be further from the truth: the young adults who were there refuse to work in virtual enslavement on Government-backed “workfare” programmes. Nor will they be beholden to global giants who employ young adults on zero-hours contracts.

Therefore, these people do not sign on, thus costing the taxpayer nothing.

Next are the adults who lived on site and went to work during the day. These people pay their taxes and have every right to be as aggrieved about the £4 million bill we have been lumbered with for the policing of Balcombe.

The real question we should be asking here is why so many officers from forces in Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Thames Valley and Devon and Cornwall were deployed?

Surely this must account for the bulk of the cost as an anti-fracking camp at Barton Moss (in Salford) has so far only cost the taxpayers of Greater Manchester about £400,000. Yet the demo there is on a similar scale to the one in Balcombe and has been going on for nearly six months now. So why the disparity in costs?

The answer is simply that the only police force present there is Greater Manchester, and it only turns up in numbers when there is activity around the fracking site itself. Ultimately, though, isn’t it time the relevant drilling companies were made to foot the bill? After all, why should we the taxpayer be fleeced in order to protect corporate giants?

Kenny Lloyd, Norway Street, Portslade