Brighton & Hove Friends of the Earth

Photo courtesy of Oliver Dee

On Saturday, 10 October, Brighton & Hove Friends of the Earth members protested outside Barclays Bank in North St, Brighton as part of a national day of protest to take action on climate change. We handed out leaflets to the public to make them aware of Barclays’ interests in fracking.

Photo courtesy of Oliver Dee

Barclays Bank own 97% of Third Energy – a company planning to frack across Ryedale, North Yorkshire It wants to drill 19 wells, including some very close to the North York Moors National Park. This would be the first time that a major High Street bank has directly invested in fracking in the UK.

Fracking is in the spotlight as it will involve accessing more fossil fuels, when the reality is we need to leave most of what we know about in the ground, if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.  This also comes only a couple of months before the next international climate change talks in Paris where it is essential that politicians come to an agreement to take concerted action to tackle carbon emissions.

Carol Dawes, a member of BHFOE said:

“We want to make people aware just what Barclays are doing and the threat they pose to our health and environment. I was born and brought up in Yorkshire. Ryedale is a special area important to everyone. It’s our National Park just as much as the South Downs is. We cannot keep drilling for more oil and gas or we are in danger of cooking the planet and ourselves with it.  We need to move beyond dirty fossil fuels and invest in clean, renewable energy instead.”

Monica (Co-ordinator for the group) said:

“We certainly put on a good show today…. 12 of us, 8 banners, T shirts, stickers and many leaflets, all brilliant and colourful. By and large we were well received and some people were genuinely shocked. For me the icing on the cake was the member of public who offered to take a wadge of leaflets into the bank and place them on the seats only for us to see Barclays customers exiting with our leaflets.”

photo courtesy of Oliver Dee

Friends of the Earth is urging anyone with concerns about Barclays funding fracking to email John McFarlane, chairman of Barclays Bank via the national Friends of the Earth website.