Dear Editor,
Just Stop Oil had a street stall in Stroud on Saturday to publicise meetings in Stroud on Tuesday, February 7th and Wednesday, March 1, 7.30pm at the Sub Rooms.
The meetings are open to everyone who is concerned about unrestricted use of fossil fuels at this time of climate crisis — find out more at https://bit.ly/JSO-Stroud-Feb.
There was a survey board on the stall and 87% felt it’s not ok to use council tax to invest in oil and gas for local authority pensions.
This statement generated some good conversations — many people hadn’t realised that that is what Gloucestershire County Council pension fund does.
Gloucestershire CC provides pensions for most local authority workers in the county — parish, town, district and county. Every council-tax payer in the county contributes to investments in oil, gas and coal as part of the pension provision for local authority workers. The pension board chair has been asked why the board continues to invest in increasingly risky “stranded” assets and has yet to come up with an answer that makes sense.
Investments for Gloucestershire and for the other local authorities in the South-West are managed by the Brunel Pension Partnership based in Bristol. Brunel has also been asked why they continue to invest in oil, gas and coal. Their response does not make sense either.
If you are concerned about this, please support SW Action on Pensions (bit.ly/SWAP-page) and join the Divest from Crisis meeting on 15 Feb on zoom — https://bit.ly/Divest-Crisis — we need to change the way our pensions and particularly our local government pensions are invested.
Almost everyone – 96% felt the government is NOT doing enough on the climate crisis.
Alan Mossman,
Stroud
