Liberals may hold up Edgar Street redevelopment

The Liberal Party leader on Herefordshire Council, Terry James, has poured scorn on the decision to buy ground close to the Roman Road, just outside Hereford, for a new livestock market.

This Thursday Hereford Council will formally agree to build the new market on a fourty-eight acre site owned by Llyswen based farmers, J&C Griffiths & Son, and the Church of England but James has told the Hereford Journal that the Liberals will not support the deal.

The Council is understood to be paying around £1.5M for the site or around £35,000 per acre.

James told the Journal that he pledged not to put 'this added burden on the council payer when we are returned to power after the May elections'.

"Building on the 'Griffiths' field is a waste of public money when the council itself owns 5,000 acres of land in the county.

"We will look at other sites owned by the council."

If the Liberals are elected next May and then scrap the plans already put in place, it will delay the market move from the center of Hereford perhaps by as much as another year.

This inturn would mean that the regeneration of the area including Hereford United's ground could be further delayed.

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