I HAVE lived and worked in Lydney all my life in the building trade, recently on houses at Highfield Hill.

I feel as though Allaston development and the self-build scheme within is a unique opportunity and asset for the area and community.

I believe such a scheme will be beneficial for all age groups as it includes not only self-build plots for younger tradesmen like myself but also a mix of retirement homes and normal housing creating a nice community mix with lots of open space and room for people to live.

This, I feel, is not currently being met by the Local Plan which is plagued with large housing developments by large companies that are not part of the Forest community.

From my time working in the building trade I have also noted the decline of affordable plots for local housing developers to develop.

The current plan highlighted by Mark Harper as 'adequate' is, I feel as a young person working in the building trade, a farce with little decent-sized community driven plans such as Allaston that allow local developers to partake.

The Allaston development proposed to not only use local builders and suppliers but also offers young tradesman the opportunity to get on the property ladder with the self-build plots.

Working in all aspects of the building trade would make this prospect an easy reality for myself and others alike (I and tradesmen friends have even suggested we could build our own road of houses at Allaston).

The popularity of this development truly exists within the community with many of my friends showing an interest not only in the self-build plots but the sale houses as well as you can see from me expressing my views formally here, which is a very rare occurrence for someone my age in such a community.

Yet I feel it's about time the Forest moved forward in a prosperous manner and use and identify any opportunity that allows the younger generations to put their incomes toward building a future instead of commonly renting or having to live with parents to a late age.

I believe Allaston development thus needs to be thoroughly thought through in a positive nature within the community, as I can see massive benefits to many segments of local society especially the prospering young such as myself.

– Conner Letheren, Lydney.