That new-build south facing roofs only gain planning permission if they have solar power systems. That new-build high buildings only gain planning permission if they have windmills on top! These things we demand in the name of our children and grandchildren, and even for our own retirement, which otherwise may perish in the coming environmental chaos!’ Tom arrived at the start of his residency with a pink painted pedal-bike. By peddling, willing volunteers produced electricity, which charged a battery. At the flick of a switch they could then discharge the battery, with a show of flashing lights and the sound of a noisy siren, into the National Grid. Legally this procedure required the installation of an inverter and numerous forms of consent. Gaining the relevant authorisations took Tom several months to achieve. He filleded one of the studio walls with the letters which portrayed the bureaucratic nightmare of a paper trail required to gain permission to install this system in England. On one of the studio walls. He used another empty wall to emphasise the stark contrast to the zero-paperwork ‘off-the-shelf’ facility readily available in Holland. Much of Tom’s work involved writing to influential personalities to draw attention to this absurdity and to seek their written response. Many Government departments, quangos and officials seemed at a loss to provide sensible explanations. Some merely passed the buck. Opposition parties were generally supportive. Tony Benn positively wished the campaign good luck. HRH The Prince of Wales regretted he was unable to reply personally. Local MP Diana Organ gave the initiative guarded approval since ‘renewable energy is a key component in the Government’s energy policy, setting a target of 10% of electricity sales by licensed suppliers to be from renewable sources by 2010’.

With the help of a webcam installed in the studio Tom photographed anyone producing power by riding the bike. A photograph was printed out there and then and participants invited to put a written comment under the picture. Very quickly over a hundred pictures were displayed with comments such as ‘Why does it take so long for the British to make the simplest ideas work!’. Members of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth demonstrated their support by cycling. Diana Organ commented that the bike helped to highlight the issues raised by renewable energy policies but also took the opportunity to suggest that ‘more cyclists on the road would also ease traffic congestion’. She spent a further three hours with Tom and representatives from Taurus Crafts discussing Government policies in regard to renewable energies. Tom also set up a web facility that provided access to over fifty sites, all of which focussed on environmental issues of one kind or another. In this way visitors could tap in to global concerns whilst registering their protests at a local level by riding the bike. During Tom’s month-long residency several workshops and lectures were held, which included an interactive display of renewable energy devices and a talk on straw-bale house building by Jim Wallis, an expert in the field. Perhaps the real lasting legacy for Taurus will be the establishment, on the annual Forest of Dean events calendar, of a Sustainable Futures Convention hosted by Taurus Crafts, the first of which was held in September 2003.