8:00am Thursday 10th May 2012
THANKS to the public spirit of Councillor Mark Hubbard and your newspaper we now know why the cattle market development was kept secret.
Do you remember what we were promised? Affordable housing around the landscaped setting of a restored canal, a multiplex, and the protection of High Town – an ambitious vision with an income for the future.
What actually will we get?
Nothing. Temporary employment for builders, some part-time jobs in the shops, death to High Town, and a safe long-term profit for the developers.
This was kept secret because surely even the moribund Conservative councillors would have voted against it.
A previous Conservative administration put this development outside the direct control of the council. Perhaps it was feared that a different council would have cancelled an indefensible project. Now it is clear that this cabinet has sold out to the power of the developers without even fighting for the beneficial outcome which they had promised.
You might think that a cabinet of ex-businessmen would have realised that this was not the best decade in which to subject Hereford to an outdated shopping mall.
But these same people want us to pay for a bypass which the Highways Agency would inevitably have built (and paid for) to complete their up-dating of the A49.
Enough said.
This cabinet will presumably resign, but we in Hereford will pay for their folly for generations to come.
LANCE MARSHALL, Whitecross Road, Hereford.
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