The Paul Rogers blog: A very disgruntled Herefordian

10:00am Thursday 5th April 2012 in Paul Rogers Blog By Paul Rogers

I AM a born and bred Herefordian, lived in the city all of my life (apart from when I was at university and college) and am proud of my roots.

But what is there to sing about at the moment?

We have a multi-million pound retail development in the pipeline with no one knowing exactly when it will start.

The council have said it will now be 2014 as they don't want work to impact on the Queen's visit and the Olympic torch passing through the city, but would anyone be surprised if it was put back even further?

There have been key amendments changed to the new deal, but they are to be debated in private by the Cabinet today.

Yes private!

The council are stating commercial confidentiality as the reason behind it, but I'll let you make up your own minds.

Remember, this is OUR money that they will be spending, so for the public to de denied a chance to hear the new terms of the deal is, in my opinion, simply not on.

Councillor Mark Hubbard, leader of It's Our County, has provided the Hereford Times with a copy of the secret report that he says "sells out" the city centre.

I won't go into too much detail about what's contained in it as you can read the paper yourself to find out, but it is damning reading!

Elsewhere, we still have traffic problems in the city - remember the huge jams caused by a gas leak last week?

It only takes a small collision on Greyfriars Bridge or Newamrket Street to bring the whole city to a halt, and the sooner we can get a bypass the better if you ask me.

We also have an eyesore that was the Sportsman pub greeting people coming to the north of the city and hoardings around the old cattle market.

Not exactly the sort of "welcome to Hereford" message that I want to give visitors entering the city.

The city's main football a football team has struggled to pull up weeds, let alone trees, for the past three years (that's Hereford by the way, not Westfields) and have it all to do to stay in the Football League, while shops are closing left, right and centre.

I will always hold Hereford close to my heart, but I just wish there were more things to be proud about right now.

Comments(1)

Lukio says...
3:51pm Fri 6 Apr 12

Paul....I feel your shame (although shame may be too harsh a word) about the current state of things in our wonderful county. We seemingly have a council that does not care about the city and is willing to sell out to the highest (actually, the lowest) bidder and has no direction or clue where it is going. I fear it will get worse especially when the shops in High Town start getting boarded up as retailers move to the ESG area with the recent relaxation of the rules to who can relocate there. Who is this council working for? It's electorate or itself? It should be working to improve the image of this county, provide the roads that we need in and out and then look at bringing people in to a redeveloped central area i.e. High Town - not the ESG area. As long as the council continues down the path it has taken, works incestuously as they are with Hereford Futures and Stanhope, there will be no future for this city. Just a bunch of local politicians rubbing their hands together and proclaiming 'we did this' and expect us to fall in love with ESG. It will be a pyrrhic victory but the spin generated by the council will be enough to pull the wool over most people's eyes. But they were voted to power in a fair election so what can we do?

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