A CLIMATE strike attracted hundreds of campaigners of all ages at Chester Town Hall on Friday, September 20, with those in attendance rallying for the cause of climate change.

The strike was set up by groups such as Chester and District Friends of the Earth (FOE) and Extinction Rebellion Cheshire (XRCheshire) in solidarity with the many school strikes across the world influenced by 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Parents in and around Cheshire took their children out of school to be part of the strike where they enthusiastically chanted various phrases and held up signs protesting climate change, whilst other people gave out numerous leaflets with facts regarding the matter.

One parent, Mandy Lewis, 42, from Malpas, said: “There’s no single bigger issue than climate change.

“Not Brexit, not anything else. It’s this.”

Mandy brought her two children along, who were there to support the strike.

On school agenda, she added: “I don’t think its studied enough and certainly, from what I’ve heard from one teacher, who’s a climate change denier, it’s not appreciated enough; it’s just swept under the carpet.”

Helen Tandy, co-ordinator for FOE, was present whilst helping set up a mural for the strike.

FOE has strongly campaigned for environmental issues such as plastic waste and sea pollution with Chester’s own Helen Tandy being at the helm since it started up in the city.

On Chester’s part to play in the strikes across the world, she said: “Well, Friends of the Earth got the Climate Act through in the UK years ago, but since then we’ve just not done enough.

“There’s been too much climate change denial and at FOE, we’ve got a huge commitment now to try and take action and get people to think about it.

“We’ve been promoting the climate action in Chester and this is an absolutely fantastic turnout. The best that we’ve had in the region.

“So, it shows that the people of Cheshire West and Chester care.”

Throughout the morning there were speeches from the likes of Weaver Vale MP Mike Amesbury and Dr Christian Dunn, senior lecturer at Bangor University, with local people, adults and children, voicing their opinions on the subject at hand.

One sign simply read: “We must drive less” whilst others were for anti-fracking or campaigning against air pollution in the city.

Colin Watson, former Cheshire West and Chester (CWaC) Green Party chairman, was also present on the day and was there to speak with politicians at the event.

He said: “Today is the biggest global protest ever.

“There were over 150,000 people in Sydney. There must be over 300 people here and we’ve still got 10 minutes to start in Chester.

“This was initially triggered off by Greta Thunberg, who said: 'Climate change is so simple, even children understand what to do'.

“You need to stop putting carbon in the atmosphere. That’s what we’re here to say to the politicians today.”

Helen added: “I think in the last 10 years a lot of things that could have helped they’ve (the government) stopped.

“So, onshore wind is one of them, their support of fracking and they just need to turn all of those changes of the last 10 years around.

“But, they need to do it really quickly.

“So, they need to say 'No to fracking in the UK' and we need to start looking at renewables in a real concerted effort to try and change our energy mix.”