LYDNEY needs a heart, a centre, a focus. Currently it seems to be a ribbon of failing shops with loads of traffic passing through.

Lydney has lots of potential being near a little river, the docks and a beautiful forest.

Lydney has some excellent benchmarks for example the hospital, the outdoor swimming pool and the facilities offered by Whitecross School.

Lydney is popular, the town is often crowded and the remaining shops well supported. It is lively and many people love it.

What is needed more than anything is a town square on Newerne Street, which is now more active than the old centre of Lydney near the Cross.  There is a car-lot taking up valuable space right in the centre, alongside the river and on the main street.  These cars could be sold outside of the town. How many people looking to buy a car have to go to do it by bus?

This square could have a central feature such as a fountain, cafes and shops, and a paved area where street dancers and others could perform to entertain the shoppers.  Also, clean up the river and develop it as an amenity running alongside this central square. 

The docks is a project begun and unfinished too.  It needs toilets and cafe at the very least.  There must be some money available through one means or another to develop the town in these ways.  It needs someone with gumption to be driving the project and refusing to be put off by the difficulties.

Lydney is a missed opportunity as it has too much going for it not to be exploited. People would stay and shop in the town if it was attractive enough and there were more goods available. Many people shop there even though currently it is not attractive.  Take the traffic away and build on what is already there just as those people did who have improved Lydney Hospital and the Bathurst Swimming Pool.

Perhaps it needs a very dynamic and determined project team, a younger version of Melville Watts, to see what could be done and then be determined to do it.

– Patricia Hodg­kinson, Upper Common, Aylburton.