AMBITIOUS plans have been unveiled to create a new crossing over the River Severn from Lydney to Sharpness, by hovercraft.

Submitted to the Gloucestershire First Local Enterprise Partnership (GFirst LEP) by South Gloucestershire and Stroud College, the new hovercraft would link the Forest with the new campus that the college is having built, in Berkeley, next to the closed nuclear power station.

It would replace the old railway bridge link between the two communities, which was severed when the structure was destroyed in 1960 in a disaster that claimed five lives.

Since then, the only way to get to the far bank from the Forest side of the river is via Gloucester, or the Severn Bridges - a total land journey of around 35 miles, which takes about an hour. It has been estimated that the crossing by hovercraft could be completed in ten minutes.

GFirst LEP, which is the county's regional development organisation, will scrutinise the proposals, and evaluate them for their possible economic boost to the area.

Chief executive, David Owen, said: "GFirst encourages great ideas within Gloucestershire to be submitted as project proposals, which can then be sent to us for funding consideration. All proposals are considered against a set of criteria."

The plans, which are priced at around £6million, would include an estimated £3.5 million for the hovercraft itself.

Residents of the Severnside towns and villages may also recall that in June 2000, Sue Dubois, transport campaigner from Newnham-on-Severn, organised two military hovercraft to cross the river between the village and Arlingham on the opposite bank, to celebrate the millenium.

She told the Review: "Three thousand Foresters and visitors will remember the weekend in June 2000 when the Royal Marines Assault Hovercrafts ferried them across from Newnham to Arlingham.

"When the two hovercrafts swept in from staying overnight at the Severn Bore pub, people flocked to the Old Ferry Point here in Newnham, to cross over to Arlingham. Over a glorious hot weekend,  hundreds were ferried over.  The local communities in Arlingham and Newnham organised events on their sides of the river."

She added: "All luck to the new hover crossing."