Turner bemoans slow progress over plans

Earlier today Graham Turner spoke of his disappointment of just how slowly things are moving over the hopeful redevelopment of the Edgar Street stadium. He also said that he has a meeting with an architect 'experienced in terms of football stadium' later this week.

It isn't the first time Turner has spoken about the appointment of an architect to help with the planning.

In the summer of 2005 Turner told the Hereford Times that he hoped to persuade an architect friend, who had worked on the design of both Molineux and the Madejski Stadiums, to help him.

"I hope he will join us as our honorary adviser on what we need to be looking at on the development of the stadium with the Richardsons and Herefordshire Council," said Turner.

In July that year Turner told the VP's AGM that an architect had been appointed and at a fans forum one month later Turner outlined his views.

"We're in a position now where we have got to work with the council and the Richardsons to get what we want out of this. I've enlisted the help of a friend of mine, an architect who did Molineux and the Reading stadium. He is going to look after anything we need if, for instance, the Richardsons wanted a cinema or something similar behind the goal, then our man will make sure that we get the adequate number of turnstiles, toliets, canteens, all those sorts of things, as well as the amount of terracing we want.

"It is a bit complicated, the line of vision etc and it needs somebody on your side to go through all that. We got him there to help us."

Later that year Turner revealed the name of the architect.

"My old friend Alan Cotterill, now retired but a specialist in stadia development, has been invaluable to us with his expertise. He has helped us out absolutely free of charge and has begun roping in some of his contacts from the world of design, project management and business planning," Turner wrote in Bullseye.

"I now beleive that we are acquiring the services of an impressive team of experts in their particular field."

Little happened in 2006 but in February this year Turner was again hopeful of progress.

"We would dearly love to see the first part of the Edgar Street Development taking place at the football ground, providing the facility that is much needed and giving our supporters new areas of the ground that benefit the modern era," he told the Hereford Times.

Today's words from Turner - I'll be very disappointed if we don't get a planning application in before the turn of the year. That still applies but we need to start things shaping up a little bit - suggest there might be a further delay in getting plans into the council.

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