LOCAL political artist Tom Cousins took his latest community artwork to parliament to protest to the government about its policy on fracking.

Tom, from Coleford, has created a wooden wheel, called ‘Don’t Frack…the Commonweal’, with each of the spokes ‘bodged’ by fracking protesters around the UK, including here in the Forest of Dean.

He said: “This wheel is a representation of the archaic idea of the ‘commonweal’ – an idea that power should be vested as close to the people as possible to manage the environment suitably for their sustenance, overriding the interests of crown and royal decree.

“We are presenting the wheel to the ancient institution that the commonweal forged in the 17th century – Westminster – to remind it of its intended purpose. Westminster is failing to represent the will of the people or defend the ability of our environment to sustain us, it is serving the contradictory interests of the fossil fuel industry.

“The wheel is not a traditional representational device of the commonweal, but if all the spokes hold their position and stay of equal lengths then society can effectively roll.”

Tom created the Mushet mural in Coleford and the Dennis Potter mural in Berry Hill. He has also created a number of political – anti-Infrastructure Bill and and anti-fracking – murals across the Forest.

He taught the almost forgotten vernacular craft of bodging, shaping logs for your purpose using hand tools, to the fracking protesters, whom he describes as ‘water protectors, and adds: “I’ve travelled to eight water protection camps and gatherings from Lancashire to the Isle of Wight, Somerset to Surrey, enabling people to make a spoke from a local log for a wheel to represent the commonweal.

“The Forest’s spoke was made at ‘800 Years and Counting’, an event celebrating 800 years of defending the Forest Charter, and the Forest, from enclosures, sale and fracking. A dozen people worked on the spoke including Verderer Rich Daniels. Fracking licences have been returned to the government after a 13-month resistance campaign by Frack Off Our Forest. They could be taken up again at anytime, but I’ll eat my hat if they get a drill in the ground here.”

Tom and other protesters presented the wheel pro-democracy anti-fracking peers including Baroness Jan Royall, from Newnham-on-Severn, in front of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster.

A virtual 3D model of the wheel and a six-minute film about its construction can be found at www.tomcousins.co.uk/commonweal.html