THE Forest Council has been pulled up on its continuous investment in fossil fuels more than five years since it declared a climate emergency.

Green Party councillors raised concerns at a recent meeting over council investments in a fund which has shares in the oil and gas industry.

Councillor Mark Topping (G, Lydney West and Aylburton) called on the council to disinvest from the Schroders Income Maximiser Fund which is currently providing the authority with a return of 7.8 per cent.

He told the meeting in Coleford on February 16 that the council is giving money to the very thing they are trying to fight.

“It’s crazy. It is not just ironic that we give money to the fossil fuel industry and declare a climate emergency on the other hand, it is pure madness,” he said.

Finance cabinet member Richard Leppington (Progressive Independents, Bream) said the fund invests in Shell but it constitutes just 3 per cent of the fund. The big oil and gas companies pay a lot of tax which supports services like the NHS and are investing in renewable energy technology, he said.

“Selling up at this time would lose the council money. I cannot support an action which would damage this authority and in the future we may reconsider the investment,” he said.

Officers also explained that it would cost the council £259,504 to disinvest. But Cllr Sid Phelps (G, Lydbrook) said the council declared a climate emergency in 2018 and should take it seriously.

“There’s going to come a time when we’ve actually got to stop making excuses. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“We declared a climate emergency but we are going to do something about it. We’ll put up a few panels here but we are not going to dis-invest in people who are trashing the planet.”

Councillor Philip Burford (I, Hartpury and Redmarley) accused the Greens of grandstanding. He said they would have the council lose its investment return to “do the good green things the council wants to do”.

He asked how people are supposed to get to work and look after their families without fossil fuels if electric vehicles are also bad.

He said: “It irritates me that members will come to this meeting and not think about our residents. We are all committed to a climate emergency and doing the right thing for the environment but it’s my belief that we should also be committed to doing the right thing financially so that the people of the Forest of Dean can live and prosper.”

Councillor Andy Moore (G, Pillowell) said climate change was at the top of the council’s corporate priorities but is nowhere when it comes to where the council invests its money. He said: “We have to take our money and put it where our mouth is.”

Conservative Cllr Nick Evans (C, Tidenham) asked why the Greens had not while they were in the cabinet. And council leader Tim Gwilliam (Progressive Independents, Berry Hill) defended the work the authority has done to reduce its carbon emissions over the last five years.

“Much of it was pushed by the two [Green] former cabinet members. I find it disingenuous that they should slight us in the way they are doing.

“There is a climate emergency. We are trying to take it seriously but we have to do it in a way we can afford to do it.”

Cllr Gwilliam said the return from much of the investment may have gone towards carbon reduction such as solar panels.

And Cllr SImon Phelps (I, Westbury-on-Severn) said everyone is concerned about climate change but pointed out that since 1750, Great Britain has produced as much CO2 as China has produced in the last eight years.

“The council policy on where it has its investments is only going to have the most minute effect. Are we going to stop using products made in China?”

The council voted down a proposal which sought to look at aligning its investment strategy with the council’s priority of reduction of impacts of climate change by 15 votes against, eight in favour and one abstention.