STUDENTS demonstrated outside the Chester branch of the 80% publicly-owned RBS bank in opposition to its investments in ‘dirty oil’.

The People & Planet group claims RBS has a £2.5bn stake in a tar sands project in Canada, threatening a bio-diverse area of forestry.

An RBS spokesman said: “RBS continues to be a key provider of general lending and other banking services to international and domestic energy companies; this is not tied to specific projects, and the energy companies involved range from oil and gas to those focussed on renewable energy.

“We are committed to conducting our business in a sustainable manner by assessing lending, investment and services decisions through defined risk and credit committee procedures; taking into account ethical and environmental issues.”