FOUR people from Somerset have been arrested during the Just Stop Oil protests in London earlier this week.

Bridgwater Labour councillor Richard Morgan was one of the four Somerset residents arrested.

They are among hundreds of Just Stop Oil supporters who have been arrested for  locking traffic in Central London.

The group are demanding that the Government commits to ending all new oil and
gas projects in the UK.

Richard Morgan, 45, was one of those blocking roads and was already arrested earlier in October.

He said “I’ve joined thousands of other ordinary people in civil resistance against the  government's criminal inaction on the climate crisis, and it’s reckless issuing of new oil and gas licences.

"Human-caused heating is wreaking havoc across the globe and untold suffering is heading our way and will soon be on our own doorstep. I have exhausted all  other avenues and nonviolent direct action is our last hope.”

Bridgwater Mercury: Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of one of their activists spraying orange paint over the windows of the Rolex showroom in Knigtsbridge, London.Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of one of their activists spraying orange paint over the windows of the Rolex showroom in Knigtsbridge, London. (Image: PA)

Just Stop Oil supporters from the South West sprayed orange paint on four buildings in  Central London: The Home Office, the MI5 building, The Bank of England and the  headquarters of News Corp at London Bridge.

The buildings were chosen to represent the pillars that support and maintain the power  of the fossil fuel economy – government, security, finance and media. The same group  blocked other major roads in London in the preceding days. On each occasion they sat  down in the road with their now familiar banners, with many gluing themselves to the tarmac.

A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said: “We are not prepared to stand by and watch while everything we love is destroyed, while vulnerable people go hungry and fossil fuel companies and the rich profit from our misery.

“The era of fossil fuels should be long gone, but the creeping tentacles of fossil fuel  interests continue to corrupt our politics, government and the media as they have for decades."

“Well we’re done with begging. We are acting to stop new oil and gas because it is the right thing to do. As citizens, as parents we have every right under British law to protect ourselves and those we love – please join us.

"The government has the power to end the disruption today by agreeing to stop new oil and gas licences and consents.”