THE team to turn Hereford into the 'social, leisure and cultural' capital of The Marches has been chosen, writes BILL TANNER.

Next week a consortium starts consultation over ideas for the Edgar Street grid, that 43 hectare site stretching from the cattle market/football ground to the railway station.

In terms of ambition alone, the envisaged development dwarves anything ever attempted in the county, an 'epic' with a budget in the hundreds of millions.

Included in the initial brief is a multiplex cinema, sports/leisure schemes, an arts academy, conference/hotel facilities, offices, and a restored residential canal basin already dubbed 'Little Venice'.

At the centre is a county citadel where Herefordshire Council has a new base, the city a much-needed new library (Kemble House having been shelved for the time being) and police a new divisional HQ.

Intended is a Hereford that is the 'social, leisure and cultural' capital of The Marches. It even has a slogan: 'the place to come and the place to be'.

The £250,000 contract has been awarded to the consortium of consultants which brings a vast wealth of expertise and experience to the initiative.

The full team comprises: DTZ - project managers, economic and commercial property advisers; Macgregor Smith/ Stubbs Rich - master planners and urban design; Arup - transport and engineering; Jon Turner and Co. - local property agents; Davis Langdon-Everest - quantity surveyors; PPS - public consultation specialists.

The project, which went out to tender late last year, will be among the biggest of its kind in Europe, and champion-in-chief Herefordshire Council leader Terry James said the winning pitch proved 'as enthusiastic as we (the council) were' about what could be done.

Not everyone shares that enthusiasm. Critics see the vision as blind to the city's - and county's - real needs.

And Parliament has to re-write 400 years of Hereford history before any work can start on this future. A Private Bill to move the current cattle market beyond the boundaries set by a 1597 Charter - on which the whole concept depends - is before The Commons and The Lords.

Assuming that Bill gets a go-ahead, work on the Edgar Street grid could start later this year to finish, ideally, around the end of the decade.

A change of administration at the May council election isn't expected to affect a project that the present council's political groups are committed to in principle.

At this stage, the development - with a budget of at least £200 million - is largely self-financing.

Various regional/European grants and the sale of surplus council premises would cover much of the rest.