Invest in the Forest of Dean
The Forest of Dean has always been home to enterprising people known for all sorts of businesses.
Manufacturing is strong, employing a quarter of the local workforce in business parks and bespoke manufacturing sites. Other significant sectors include professional, scientific and technical, business support, construction, logistics, information and communication businesses. Each of these employs more full-time employees than the visitor economy.
Bounded by the Severn and the Wye, historically travel by road was restricted. Cancelling the Severn Bridge tolls removed a barrier to access the Southern Forest. It shares motorway connectivity south to the M4 and north to the M50. Significant investment has been made laying fibre for digital communications making fast office and home-working a realistic choice for the new economy.
A quick postcode check on broadband availability can be made by using the following website: Browse Maps and Check Broadband Performance and Coverage Across the UK.
Gloucestershire County Council's ‘Invest in Gloucestershire’ website showcases the best that our county has to offer to the international business community and encourages growth through inward investment.
Sustainable Economy Strategy
We have developed a Sustainable Economy Strategy and Action Plan to foster economic prosperity while ensuring environmental sustainability and social wellbeing. The strategy connects with current Council Plan priorities.
Market town regeneration
In February 2024, Forest of Dean District Council commissioned Bristol based consultancy company Flying Geese to further understand the community sentiment, challenges and opportunities of our four forest market towns: Cinderford, Coleford, Lydney and Newent.
We spoke to around 1,000 people across the district through an online survey, in-person street surveys, stakeholder interviews, visits to schools, sports clubs and grass-roots organisations – we even ran a primary school art competition for children to create a collage and help develop the visual representation of their local market town.
From this research, Flying Geese have produced a style guide of colours, stylescapes, fonts and photography – to be gifted back to the communities who helped us create it. The purpose of the style guide is to ‘make it easy’ for people to promote and talk about their towns and encourage community cohesion through colour, inspiring collaboration and co-creation.
It should be noted that the style guide is only one output of the consultation, and the research is being used for various other FODDC strategies and reports. Thank you to everyone who has given time to participate in the consultation, and special thanks to the town councils and FVAF (Forest Voluntary Action Forum) who helped us reach communities across the district.