How one Just Stop Oil supporter's net zero obsession tore a church apart

Telegraph

15-04-2025

Just Stop Oil's paint-throwing activists have blocked motorways, sabotaged petrol pumps and glued themselves to priceless art.
Now, The Telegraph can reveal that the environmental group's influence has reached a rural Peak District parish – leaving a historic church in the cold.
St John the Baptist in Tideswell has been without central heating since Storm Babet wrecked its gas boilers in October 2023.
Peter Robinson, the 79-year-old church warden, and his associate Mike Burrell, 75, have blamed the cold on the Diocese of Derby's strict interpretation of Church law – which they claim has been driven by the views of an 'activist' energy adviser who openly supports Just Stop Oil.
The Telegraph revealed on Saturday that the Church of England's pledge to achieve net zero by 2030 has left at least two dozen parishes without heating for months at a time.
In July 2022, the General Synod, the Church of England's legislative body, introduced new rules that will make it harder for churches to install new gas and oil boilers.
Although not intended as a total ban, a Telegraph investigation has found that some dioceses are interpreting it that way.
The Diocese of Derby has not supported a single request for a new fossil fuel boiler since the rule change.
The Telegraph can reveal that John Beardmore, the diocese's volunteer energy adviser and an engineer who helps officials implement the Church's net zero policy, is a supporter of both Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
Mr Burrell described Mr Beardmore as 'an activist on all sorts of fronts' and said he 'didn't consider it was ethical' for him to have taken on such an integral role.
In 2019, the adviser signed a 'Scientists for Extinction Rebellion' declaration, pledging support for 'non-violent direct action' even if it 'goes beyond the bounds of the current law'.
But Mr Beardmore reserves his strongest support for Just Stop Oil – the soup-throwing activists planning their final protest later this month.
On LinkedIn, Mr Beardmore defended Just Stop Oil activists who were jailed for bringing the M25 to a standstill, writing that it 'may be perfectly ethical to commit a crime if a law is sufficiently inappropriate'.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Beardmore said he was not an active member of Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil.
'I've never been to a protest, but I can understand the motives of those that do,' he said. 'I'm perfectly willing to say I've written character references for people who have been on trial for things which have been done by Just Stop Oil.'
The volunteer said he was not required to formally disclose his support for either group to the diocese, but added: 'There is nothing secret about it. When I wrote a character reference for the Just Stop Oil protesters, I gave a copy of it to the Dean.
'Nobody is hiding this stuff under a bush.'
The church wardens met Mr Beardmore last year after diocesan officials refused to support their second application for new boilers.
'The DAC [Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches] responded saying we needed to speak to their environmental adviser – a chap called John Beardmore,' recalled Mr Burrell.
'They said he thought he could find us more electricity, which was interesting, because [the] National Grid had already told us that they couldn't give us any more.'
Mr Beardmore proposed digging a trench through the ancient churchyard to lay cables to power air-source heat pumps — a plan Mr Burrell condemned as 'completely against any Christian philosophy you can think of'.
'If you go back a few hundred years, if people didn't come to church, they wouldn't get buried in the churchyard – but the families might want them buried in the churchyard. So in the deep of night, they'd come and dig a hole and put the grave in it. So there will be bones everywhere,' he said.
Parishioners were also troubled. 'It's absolutely barbaric,' said Lynne Burns, 53. 'It's not humane. It's people's relatives and loved ones.'
Mr Beardmore told The Telegraph that his plan had involved following the route of the current power supply to the church, which he said 'wouldn't be disturbing [graves] any more than [what's] already been done'.
But the wardens had other objections. 'What you see now is what you saw in 1380 – there's no way I could stick an air-source heat pump just outside the church,' said Mr Burrell. 'And actually, when you do the calculations, it wouldn't be just one air-source heat pump. It will be a row of them all going all the way down. It is a huge undertaking.
'And fundamentally that still wouldn't give me enough power to heat the church through electricity.'
The cost would also be prohibitive. A new gas boiler would be £10,000 – mostly covered by insurance – while heat pumps would cost around £100,000. Even the diocese's heating adviser, who worked alongside Mr Beardmore, concluded gas was their 'only option'.
Wardens complained when they learnt Mr Beardmore had attended the DAC, which decides on boiler applications.
'He's not a member of the DAC,' objected Mr Burrell. 'They've got the heating adviser who formally advises on that committee and is invited to do so. He says one thing. And the environmental adviser is clearly saying something different. And because of the Church of England Synod directive, the DAC decides to look to the environmental adviser.'
The wardens claimed that the Rev Canon Matt Barnes, the chairman of the DAC, admitted that he had to 'rely on others' on the issue of church heating as he 'didn't understand' the topic.
Mr Burrell suggested the chairman 'must be leaning on Mr Beardmore, mustn't he?'
Mr Beardmore told The Telegraph he saw nothing improper in him attending DAC meetings.
He said the committee makes decisions by collective vote and 'is not just slavishly following some rabid activist'.
A spokesman for the Derby diocesan board of finance said they were 'hugely sympathetic' to the church's situation and had been 'working closely with them on their faculty application for a working heating system and will continue to do so'.
They added that the board would not recommend trenching the churchyard if 'after assessing the risk it felt it would disturb graves'.