Yesterday, 30th July, visitors to Prior Park Landscape Garden held a demonstration, calling on The National Trust to stop banking with Barclays.
The group posed on the Palladian bridge to urge the charity to drop Barclays, which is Europe’s biggest funder of fossil fuels.
Prior Park Landscape Garden, which is famous for its Palladian bridge, one of only four bridges of this design in the world, dating from 1755, is one of hundreds of sites owned by the National Trust, which is the guardian of nature reserves, national parks, coastline, historic buildings and estates across the country.
The locals carried placards saying ‘Love National Trust, Not Barclays’, and engaged with families, handing out leaflets and collecting signatures for a petition calling on the charity to switch to a bank which does not fund fossil fuels.
The demonstration was part of a week of colourful actions by campaigners across the country to urge the National Trust to ditch Barclays, which has poured $235.2 billion into fossil fuels in the last seven years.
Groups taking part in the campaign include Tipping Point, Christian Climate Action, Parents for Future, Money Rebellion, Extinction Rebellion and others.
Despite publishing a new energy policy at the start of this year that it hailed as a step towards a “science-based” approach towards “financing the transition”, Barclays continues to finance infamous fossil fuel companies such as Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell. In 2023 alone, Barclays provided $24.221 billion of financing to fossil fuel companies.
Their new energy policy was criticised widely for loopholes that allow them to continue supporting carbon-intensive industries such as fracking. Meanwhile, investigative journalists have discovered that Barclays’ “sustainable finance” funds pipelines and oil expansion projects.
Recently, other institutions have announced their intentions to stop banking with Barclays for ethical reasons. Christian Aid and Oxfam have removed their funds from Barclays already. Cambridge University is withdrawing its support for Barclays and is leading a group of universities and colleges that are investigating more sustainable financial products. Despite its commitment to natural conservation, the National Trust is therefore lagging behind other charities and thought leaders within its sector.