ESTABLISHING a town lottery and re-opening public toilets is first on the agenda for a new Ledbury community company.

The Love Ledbury group will be launched at a public meeting next Thursday (June 12) at 7.30pm at the community hall in Lawnside Road.

Locals can join the company as shareholders and vote on projects and priorities for the group.

Councillor Rich Hadley founded the group along with fellow councillors, Annette Crowe and Liz Harvey.

He said: "With the government's Localism agenda, it's really important for our community to have an organised way of raising money from local businesses, visitors and residents. We need to be able to take advantage of grants and other funding sources which are not available to the local councils. At the moment, we're definitely not making the most of these opportunities. Love Ledbury is going to change all that."

One of the first projects will be to re-open and run the public toilets in Bye Street and to set up a town lottery.