It’s easy to ignore council consultations, as irrelevant exercises that produce pages of plans that will never happen anyway. After all we live in a city that has seen limited development for several generations, however the current wave of development on the fringe of the city centre that was started with the Old Market is part of a whole sequence of development that will now take place over successive years, much of which is certain to be driven forward by the building of the university. The current consultation on the Hereford Area Plan is a vital planning stage to ensure the coming wave of development is appropriate.

To ensure we have a vibrant city that continues to be attractive and draw visitors we need to make some bold and controversial decisions that are embedded within the policies of the Hereford Area Plan, otherwise we risk having a city where some parts cease to have a purpose. The Hereford Area Plan will set in place planning policies for several decades, during which time the likelihood is that most of the banks will close or downsize, travel agents will mostly become online only, as will the estate agent industry, and the declining need for retail space has already begun.

The good news for Hereford is that we are currently bucking the national trend, Widemarsh Street, Church Street and the Old Market are now fully let, Maylords is filling with new shops, and High Town has started to revive. However, without a proactive plan of what to do with all that vacated space, as the next wave of exoduses from sectors outside of retail begins, the revival will stall. The Hereford Area Plan, should therefore consider if certain areas of the city currently used for retail and leisure should have different uses, most likely for education or residential use. It won’t please many business owners, but proactively addressing this before those areas decline in use and value, is better than letting them drift.

By John Jones, Steering group chairman of Hereford Business