NURSES and trained volunteers who will be vital to the Great Oaks Hospice plan met the public for the first time at the Dilke Memorial Hospital, Cinderford, on Tuesday.
The team was revealed ahead of a planning submission by the Dean Hospice Steering Committee to build a hospice on land near the Coombs Nursing Home at Sparrow Hill, Coleford.
The application is being regarded as a major step forward in the ambitions of the project organisers to establish a hospice locally.
In other moves bringing fresh momentum to the campaign a one day a week pilot project will open for the first patients on March 5 at the Dilke.
Nursing staff, led by clinical nursing manager Jane Hamilton and funded by the Steering Committee, have been appointed and a pool of back-up volunteers are being trained.
Two members, Kay Clarke and Barbara Watkins, are forming a 'Friends of the Hospice' group for continuous fund-raising and with successful hospice shops already in Coleford and Cinderford there is now a prospect of a third to be opened in Lydney.