With regard to the proposed new headquarters in Newent for Two Rivers Housing, I for one am not jumping for joy. While on the face of it any new jobs coming to the Forest of Dean are to be welcomed, the truth of it is these jobs will not be to the benefit of the Forest of Dean as a whole.

Newent is on the periphery of the Forest of Dean, nearer to Gloucester than it is to any of the other major 'Forest' towns, it is inaccessible by public transport to most residents of 'the Forest' and almost certainly the major beneficiaries regarding employment will be people from the Newent area and Gloucester.

The chief executive of Two Rivers Housing, Garry King, should be reminded that Two Rivers Housing inherited most of its initial housing stock (located principally in Cinderford, Coleford, Lydney and the other smaller towns in the 'traditional Forest') from the District Council and still derives the bulk of its income from these towns. Mr King should realise that as the head of a social housing organisation his responsibility extends beyond building houses and taking rents, he has a wider social responsibility to the communities he serves and which ultimately pay his wages.

Undoubtedly the best and the most socially responsible location would be Cinderford at the very heart of the Two Rivers Housing 'empire', accessible to the bulk of his tenants and with a ready pool of labour available. With unemployment levels nearly twice those of Newent, Cinderford and the surrounding area has for far too long been crying out for employment opportunities, white collar jobs are virtually non-existent in the town. I believe that the relative under-achievement by many pupils at Heywood School is directly linked to the dearth of job opportunities in Cinderford.

A flagship project such as locating the Two Rivers Housing headquarters and the associated ancillary development would be the important boost the long awaited Cinderford regeneration project needs and could well prove to be the catalyst that draws other employers to the town.

To pre-empt a reply from Garry King that Two Rivers Housing are about to invest heavily in Cinderford – building houses on the Ensor's site (enabled in part by Cinderford regeneration monies) I would remind him that is what Two Rivers Housing exists to do, build houses where there is a need and rent them out – it is not being done out of the goodness of their hearts!

So please Mr King, look to your social conscience and the core values that should underpin what Two Rivers Housing is all about and then look again at your plans for your new headquarters and look again at relocating to Cinderford.

– Cllr Hedley Sutton, Cinderford Town Council.