HEREFORD United boss Graham Turner has a message for the civic leaders basking in the club’s promotion glory – make your support matter and give us the ground we’re worth.

Herefordshire Council, which owns the freehold on United’s Edgar Street home, and ESG Herefordshire, which is developing the cattle market site around the ground, now say they are ready to work with the club on what comes next.

Graham Turner wants an Edgar Street worthy of “exciting prospects” to come if Hereford United can match success on the field with commercial opportunities off it.

Ambitious ideas for the ground have done the rounds for nearly a decade and come to nothing. Now, says Mr Turner, the club has never been in a stronger position to make its case.

“It must now be close to eight years since we first started talking to the council. We certainly cannot wait another eight years before work starts,” said Mr Turner.

Soon after the club won promotion, Mr Turner met a representative of Richardsons, the real estate group which holds the leases to the ground and wants to redevelop it.

“There was not too much of an outcome from that as they, like ourselves, are relying on Herefordshire Council to support any proposals,” said Mr Turner.

Last week, council leader Councillor Roger Phillips, chief executive Chris Bull and cabinet member for resources Councillor Harry Bramer met Mr Turner to talk through plans and tour the ground – with particular attention paid to the Blackfriars and Merton Meadow terraces.

Coun Phillips told the Hereford Times that developing the ground had to be the way forward with the club on the up. The council, he said, would support United in going after stadium development grants, then look at what could be done with the Blackfriars and Merton Meadow ends which “needed immediate attention”.

ESG chief executive Jonathan Bretherton said his team was ready to “work closely” with the club on ideas for ground improvements and commercial development opened up by the grid.

Both sides will have to talk to Richardsons before outlining any plans in full. United owes Richardsons £1 million, the legacy of a loan deal done by the club in the late 1990s that saw it become a sub-tenant at the ground.

In agreement with Richardsons, the club has arranged for specialist football architects to be engaged in any project that comes to fruition.

Mr Turner said that whatever course the next major development took, the needs of supporters would not be forgotten.

“We must ensure that a commercial development is tacked on to football facilities and not the other way around. “First and foremost, this is a football ground and the needs of supporters are uppermost in our minds,” he said.

Meanwhile, Councillor Kevin Wargen, a former chairman of the Bulls supporters’ club, has just become the city’s 627th mayor. “I am still fanatical and still go home and away and, apart from my family, that is the number one interest in my life,” said Coun Wargen. “I am over the moon with Hereford United being promoted and becoming the mayor of the city I love so soon after.”