Protesters scaled the roof of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s historic country home Thursday morning, draping it with black fabric in a protest against the government issuing new oil and gas licenses this week.
Greenpeace signaled their displeasure at the UK’s bid for energy security announced by the Prime Minister this week, climbing the walls of his Yorkshire Georgian-era Manor House and draping black fabric over the elevation. They said this was an action against Sunak’s “new drilling frenzy”.
Played out to the cameras, the PM is unlikely to be directly impacted by the action as he departed with his family for a holiday in California yesterday, saying it was the first family trip in four years.
Police near Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s house in Richmond, North Yorkshire after Greenpeace activists climbed onto it’s roof and covered it in black fabric in protest at his backing for expansion of North Sea oil and gas drilling. Picture date: Thursday August 3, 2023. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)
Greenpeace said: “After reaching the top of the building using ladders and climbing ropes, the activists unfolded 200 sq metres of oil-black fabric to cover a whole side of the luxury mansion. At the same time, two activists unfurled a banner emblazoned with the words “Rishi Sunak – Oil Profits or Our Future?” across the grass in front of the manor house.”
The group claimed doing do would expose the “dangerous consequences of a new drilling frenzy.” One Greenpeace spokesman said: “We desperately need our prime minister to be a climate leader, not a climate arsonist.”
The group claimed drilling in an undeveloped oil field in the North Sea will be a climate disaster and, in their opinion, would do nothing to lower bills.
The Prime Minister’s office at Downing Street said police had responded and that the government was making the right choice to secure British energy security for the future. This, they said, was better than relying on importing energy from Russia.
Energy security has become a hot-button topic since Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine, given the importance of Russian energy exports to Europe. While the United Kingdom has not traditionally been a major importer of Russian energy, the sudden scarcity of available gas on the European market has had a major knock-on impact on energy prices in Britain, which has been running down its own generation and storage capacity for years in favour of importing electricity through undersea connectors.
The house scaled today is a late-Georgian manor in the village of Kirby Sigston. It is the third time Greenpeace has targeted the Prime Minister’s private residence, including a fancy-dress protest in March and projecting a video onto the walls of the Manor last year.
While the Prime Minister has recently gained permission to build a £250,000 fitness complex in the garden, the house itself — as the Greenpeace video reveals — appears in need of some work, with protective paint visibly flaking from some windows. As a grade-II listed building, it is subject to certain legal protections introduced after the Second World War to protect the history and heritage of the United Kingdom.
The official listing, which describes the historic features of the building, describes the Manor House as:
Dated 1826 with C20 additions. Roughcast, stone dressings, graduated stone slate roof. 2 storeys, 3 bays with two 4-bay wings to rear. Plinth. Central glazed door and overlight with glazing bars in Doric ashlar doorcase with half columns, frieze and cornice. All windows are 16-pane sashes apart from those to full-height canted bay to left which has sashes with glazing bars. First- floor band except to bay window. All windows have stone sills. Moulded stone cornice with blocking course. Roof hipped, ridge stacks. Right return has full-height canted bays to each end. Left return of 3 storeys, single-storey canted bay added to either side of ground floor, central sash and advanced porch. 4 sashes with glazing bars to first floor. Second- floor sill band and three 6-pane sashes.