Hereford United develop plans for Edgar Street's Meadow End (From Hereford Times)

Hereford United develop plans for Edgar Street's Meadow End

8:20am Friday 8th June 2012 in Local News By Bill Tanner

Hereford United is fighting for its future off the field with relegation changing the shape of ambitious plans to develop the club’s Edgar Street stadium.

The development of the ground is seen as just as vital to the club’s future as re-gaining football league status. The potential for Edgar Street as a money-making venue was why the club settled a £1million debt and paid £452,000 to get its leases on the ground back.

This week, though, United chairman David Keyte said there had been little interest from developers in what could be done with the stadium’s Blackfriars End, previously seen as a 1,650 capacity stand with a hotel/conference centre attached.

Now, the focus has switched across the pitch to the iconic but ageing, Meadow End, where the club sees scope to get something done under the Hereford Futures agenda.

The scope of such work is strongly linked to prospects for the proposed link road to the Edgar Street Grid and the “urban village” element of that plan.

With three developers interested, negotiations are already under way over the squaring off of the Meadow End to open up options for land backing onto the stand.

But the Blackfriars project – just last December given a 12-month target to have plans and funding in place – is effectively on hold for the foreseeable future.

Mr Keyte says what initial interest there was has not “moved forward.”

Relegation has also cut from £750,000 to £450,000 the maximum sum the club could claim from the Football Foundation to help develop the Blackfriars end of the ground.

First announced in early 2010, the Blackfriars project was going to be the first major redevelopment at Edgar Street since the Len Weston stand was built in the 1970s. The present Blackfriars terracing was shut after failing a health and safety inspection in the summer of 2009, with a temporary stand put in place.