A shameful U-turn at the National Trust

What has happened to Dame Helen Ghosh? Last October the director-general of the National Trust seemed prepared to stand against the green orthodoxy which exists in the public and voluntary sectors. She declared that she had an ‘open mind’ on fracking, while she rejected the case for wind farms on the Trust’s land. Her approach was entirely logical. The Trust’s job is to guard the aesthetic integrity of the landscapes which it has bought with its donors’ money, or been gifted, in order to preserve. Not to deface this land with 300 ft-high wind turbines that generate pitifully little electricity.

This week, however, Dame Helen and the National Trust appear to have done a double backflip. She now says that she is absolutely opposed to fracking on Trust land, ‘because as far as possible we want to avoid anything that encourages continued use of fossil fuel’. At the same time, she has softened her stance on wind farms. The Trust’s rural enterprise director has said that it plans to create more solar farms on its land, claiming that they encourage wildlife.

These announcements are not consistent with a policy of conserving treasured landscapes; rather, they smack of a desire to jump aboard the climate change bandwagon. Dame Helen Ghosh will find it a pretty crowded vehicle, what with all the ministers, quangocrats and backbench MPs who have already leaped on. It seems now to be a prerequisite of a senior post in the public or voluntary sector that appointees must devote time to platitudes on climate change if they want to keep their job.

This speaks to a wider, more insidious culture in government. When organisations from the Parole Board to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are required to have a climate change plan, something has gone seriously wrong.