MITCHELDEAN is bidding to secure up to £400,000 of Lottery money to set up a new community-reviving enterprise.

The Shepherd's Purse group plans to launch a Community Bioshelter Project in the village, which is still feeling the effects of the Rank Xerox closure in the nineties.

If they do win they will also star in a major prime time BBC1 series about the Big Lottery Fund's Village SOS scheme.

The enterprise would involve a new food production technology called aeroponics – growing plants in and air or mist environment without the use of soil. This would take place inside a 10,000 square-foot greenhouse-type structure, called a Bioshelter, which would yield highly nutritious food at cheap prices.

Spokesman Neil Batt said: "It's a way of enabling high quality nutritious food to be produced – which often low income households cannot afford to access. This is a much cheaper process of producing food and will help make us competitive with the supermarkets.

"Our dream is to create an ever cascading enterprise, a self sustaining facility and a self-sufficient village. This would be the first step on the ladder. It would enable the people of Mitcheldean to produce food for themselves while creating a hub of community activity. The project would be owned by the people for the people."

The 28 villages shortlisted today across the UK have been awarded a development grant of up to £10,000 to develop their business proposals.