A DISTINCTIVE town centre shop is in the firing line again, with a new plan to demolish it as part of a housing scheme.

Quirky house clearance and antique shop Yer Tiz on Lydney High Street will be torn down to make an entrance way as part of a plan for nine new houses on land behind Nos 23-31, if planners give the go ahead.

The building’s owner Bridget Thomas was refused planning permission to demolish the shop and build eight new houses, two flats and a retail outlet last January.

The land has long been targeted for development, with another plan for 11 homes and a shop rejected on appeal in 2014.

The new scheme will see the house next door to Yer Tiz at 33, Lydney High Street, retained on the 0.26-hectare site instead of being torn down.

Her planning agent, Chris Marsh of Cheltenham-based Evans Jones, said: “The revised scheme seeks to reduce the overall quantum of new development and retain 33, High Street in full, relocating the main site access, together with incidental landscaping, to the current position of 33a, which is to be demolished.”

The previous plan proposed access off High Street underneath a flat designed as part of a bridgeway.

But councillors turned the scheme down after planning officer Tony Pope told them the break in the frontage buildings would damage the sense of enclosure on the street scene, causing “unacceptable harm to the significance of the Lydney Conservation Area.”

Mr Marsh says in the new application to the Forest Council: “Although No 33 is not of exceptional design quality, it does contribute to this sense of enclosure… and consistency in the build line along the High Street.

“Its retention will therefore maintain the arrangement of terraced two-storey buildings currently seen, while making better use of the dwelling with the enhancement of amenity space to the rear.”

But he says the building occupied by Yer Tiz – 33a – was a “distinct break in the street scene primarily due to its lower scale and physical separation from No 35.”