DYMOCK Parish Council is looking to spend £20,000 on the popular tourist village's first big public car park.

The council is currently negotiating details of the lease with Gloucestershire County Council for the site, which would accommodate up to 50 vehicles on land behind the Old Forge Garage.

Parish clerk Jenny Thick said she hoped details could be sorted out in the next few weeks but that a lease was only likely to be approved for 10 years.

The parish council will find some of the funds for the car park but will get additional funding from the Forest of Dean District Council, which has also drawn up the plan for the development.

Jim Stewart, director of planning for the district council, said: "We have agreed to help the parish council to draw up lay-out plans and we've already agreed to help them with the funding for the car park."

There have been concerns in Dymock that, whatever the duration of the lease with the county council, it will only be temporary and subject to re-negotiation.

The county council has confirmed that negotiations are under way for a ten-year lease.

Mrs Thick said: "We knew from the beginning that the lease was for a limited period but with the option of renewal. There's no question of the car park not being permanent."

Ralph Palmer, publican of the nearby Beauchamp Arms, said: "The general consensus of opinion in the village is that we need a car park. That looks like the only viable site."

It is believed that a Roman road may cross the area designated for the car park and the Countryside Agency has put up £2,500 so that an archaeologist will be able to observe the work as it progresses.

Dymock attracts many tourists, not least for its links with the Dymock Poets, including Edward Thomas, who lived in the village just before the First World War.

News of the planned car park has been warmly welcomed by Roy Palmer, chairman of the Friends of the Dymock Poets, who lived in the village for 14 years, before a recent move to Malvern.

He said: "This will be a large step forward."

Dave Prout, who owns the Old Forge Garage and is a Dymock parish councillor, said he was in the dark about plans for the car park but expected to learn more about a council meeting on Monday (July 1).

"It's just come out of the blue," he said.