1:35pm Friday 5th January 2007
COUNCILLORS are going behind closed doors to count the cost of Hereford's proposed new cattle market.
The secret meeting will be sandwiched between two scrutiny sessions spotlighting the market move.
Councillor Chris Chappell, chair of the community services scrutiny committee - which will take both sessions - said legal advice left him with little option but to debate the costs of the move to Griffiths Field, Roman Road, in closed session.
But opposition leader Councillor Terry James accused the council of covering up those costs.
"The case for Griffiths Field is deeply flawed. Rather than face up to it publicly, the council is hiding behind regulations," said Coun James.
Last week, the Hereford Times reported the council's cabinet backed the move to Roman Road and suggested a special scrutiny meeting. Now there will be two.
The first meeting, set for Monday, will take evidence for and against the plan from witnesses, including parish councillors, county councillors, consultants, auctioneers and the farming community.
A second meeting scheduled for January 15 will see committee members consider the evidence put to them and make a recommendation to cabinet.
In between, there will be the meeting to discuss finance, with no press or public present.
The council says commercial confidentiality and the security of any future contract negotiations means this meeting must be held behind closed doors.
Council officers are now in talks over the purchase of Griffiths Field - the name given to 48 acres of private land where the council wants the new market to go.
Buying the site is expected to cost around £1.5 million, while the overall cost of the market move has been estimated at between £3-5 million.
The council says some of these costs can be covered by selling the market's current site to kickstart the Edgar Street grid project. Hereford Market Auctioneers, the company leasing the current site, would be offered a lease on the new site and there would be an annual tariff on animals passing through the market.
Opposition councillors have already pledged to put the move at the centre of their upcoming local election campaign, claiming the costs, which were previously presented to cabinet behind closed doors, don't add up.
They estimate the move could eventually cost taxpayers up to £10 million given the potential complications involved, like the land being both a flood plain and a water source, when a move to a council-owned site would be much cheaper.
Others say the time has come to re-appraise the principle of moving the market or creating one the proposed size.
The first scrutiny committee meeting into the market move will be at Herefordshire Council's Brockington HQ on Monday at 7pm. The second, on January 15, will also be at Brockington, starting at 2pm.
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