CAMPAIGNERS dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel have urged the county council to stop investing in fossil fuel companies.

Members of Fossil Free Oxfordshire turned up at county hall as the 19th century engineer ahead of a meeting of the new Brunel Pension Partnership.

Earlier this month it was revealed the council's Oxfordshire Pension Fund had invested almost £133m in the fossil fuel industry.

Campaign group Fossil Fuel Oxfordshire said the investments threatened the climate and represent an unacceptable risk to pension holders.

The council's pension fund committee recently adopted a new investment strategy ahead of joining the Brunel Pension Partnership - a new pension pool with other authorities - from April 2018.

Andrew Finney, from Didcot, who was dressed up as Brunel, urged the council to invest in the future and not the past.

He said: "If Brunel was around today he would be building trains powered by renewable electricity, not steam trains.

"Investing in coal and oil now would be like Brunel investing in horse drawn carriages."

He added: "It flies in the face of all the efforts being made locally to reduce emissions and risks investments in fossil fuel companies becoming “stranded assets” as the world turns towards renewable energy sources."

County council spokesman Paul Smith said: "Legal opinion obtained by the national Shadow Scheme Advisory Board states that the first duty of all Pension Fund Committees is to the membership of the scheme and that they cannot place ethical and other social, environmental and governance factors above the requirement to maximise the investment returns for a given level of risk."