Hereford and the ESG

4:42pm Thursday 10th July 2008

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I WOULD like to add my voice to the ongoing ESG discussion - wake up council and stop this waste of money immediately.

There has been a steady trickle of letters printed in the Hereford Times, stating the High Town shopping area will die a slow death if the ESG goes ahead (a city councillor admitted as much to me privately). In my opinion the centre of Hereford is already dying.

On June 9, I walked through Hereford’s current retail area, starting in Commercial Road through to Bridge Street, counting and grouping the shops and facilities as I went - something the council may want to do one day.

I counted 346 retail premises that comprised: 50 restaurants and fast-food outlets; 24 public houses; 19 estate agents; 19 hair salons, among a good mix of nationally recognised names and local, independent stores.

More importantly, I counted 24 empty premises (not including Chadds or the Orange Tree public house) and 16 charity shops. I have nothing against charity shops, however, they can receive a discount of 80% (and a further discretionary reduction of 20% by the local council) in their rates - meaning the council could possibly earn nothing from them.

So, in percentage terms, approximately 10% of all retail premises in the main shopping area of Hereford are effectively unproductive in the form of business rate payments and, more importantly, employment opportunities. Yet still the council still wants to pursue the ESG in its current form. I say, sort out the existing retail quarter first before you think developing another.

With nothing happening at the ESG until 2010, and work taking up to 15 years to complete, (the retail area is predicted to be completed by 2012) - I can only see further decline in the current town centre.

Would you want to open a shop in an area that looks to be in decline and will be dead in four years time? I suspect not. And where will be the fusion of the old and new retail quarters then?

The ESG is the biggest development in a thousand years of Hereford’s history. Costing a billion pounds. This turkey is going to go like the Sunderland Arc retail quarters - nowhere.

Lift your heads from the trough and look to the needs of the people, not your own self-aggrandisement.