Artist Antony Gormley unveiled a radical plan for Trafalgar Square’s empty fourth plinth today - inviting members of the public to stand on it and do whatever they like.

Gormley proposes that the plinth be occupied 24 hours-a-day, with a different person every hour.

Over a period of 12 months, a total of 8,760 people would take part.

It is one of six proposals for the next fourth plinth commission, all now on display at the National Gallery.

Tracey Emin plans to create statues of meerkats. Anish Kapoor has designed five concave mirrors which reflect the sky.

The other entrants are Jeremy Deller, who will display the remains of a burnt-out car destroyed in an attack on civilians in Iraq; Yinka Shonibare, who will build a scale replica of Nelson’s ship, HMS Victory, in a giant glass bottle; and Bob and Roberta Smith, who plan a huge peace sign powered by the sun and the wind.

Gormley, who created the Angel of the North sculpture, described his soapbox-style installation as a cross between reality TV and Speaker’s Corner.

“I would like the widest range of human behaviour to be represented,” he said.

“The asylum seeker, the person who is homeless, people who don’t naturally think of this as being their kind of thing,” are among those he would like to see on the plinth.

“I think it’s very important there is some declaiming but equally important that there is silence.

“A salaryman who has spent his whole life commuting from Croydon standing there in his pinstripe suit - that’s very potent.

“We need the bodybuilder but we also need the paraplegic, the naturist but also the Shakespearean actor, perhaps a politician and a car mechanic, a granny from Pinner and perhaps a member of the Royal Family.

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