Is swapping a thousand years of history for a branch of Debenhams a good deal? Hereford’s civic leaders hope so.
Huge red-and-white Hereford cows have been driven into Hereford city centre’s cattle market for the best part of the last millennium. The regular sales help to cement the city’s relationship with its deeply rural hinterland.
But now the 12-acre cattle market – one of only a handful of largetown- and city-centre cattle markets left in the UK – is to be replaced with a 425,000 sq ft retail and leisure scheme. The smart money is on Debenhams being the anchor store. The redevelopment is the first – and most obviously money-spinning – phase of the £900m Edgar Street Grid scheme.
Redeveloping the 100-acre site to the north of the city centre promises to double the size of Hereford’s commercial core. Along with shops and a cinema, the project will include an urban village and improved links to the railway station and the arts centre – both of which are out on a limb.
Office space and public squares are promised in the masterplan, which was unveiled earlier this month.
The entire project hinges on finding a neat way to cross Blueschool Street – a thundering dual carriageway carrying most of Hereford’s through traffic. With the Edgar Street Grid on the north of the road, and the city centre on the south, clever road improvements are essential if the project is to stand a chance of succeeding.
But local property pundits think it has more than a road to cross. It has commercial reality to overcome, too.
Regional development agency Advantage West Midlands has spent £4.1m buying a 6-acre site for occupiers forced to move out of the Edgar Street area, and another £1.9m on acquiring a 1.5-acre slice of the Edgar Street site near the main railway station. Yet doubts remain.
Jon Taylor, director at Hereford commercial surveyor Turner & Co, is among those who think swapping a cattle market for Debenhams is a poor bargain. He wonders if there is enough retail and office demand to make the scheme pay.
“Where are they going to find the occupiers, and where are they going to find the additional retail spend needed to support it?” he asks. “Hereford has the lowest wages in the West Midlands, and is in the bottom 10% in England. Have we really got the spending power for all this extra space? Judging by the state of the existing shopping streets, the answer is no.”
He adds: “My fear is that retail development will simply shift retail spending from one side of Blueschool Street to the other.”
The same doubts about the strength of occupier demand beset the office element of the Edgar Street masterplan. With office rents just touching £11 per sq ft, observers say that speculative office development will require generous subsidies and could, in any event, stand empty even if built.
Jonathan Bretherton, chief executive of ESG Herefordshire, the body set up by Advantage West Midlands and Herefordshire council to pilot the project, acknowledges the difficulties that lie ahead.
“The challenge is to make the new match the old, making a very constrained city centre integrate with our area to the north, and create an enlarged city centre rather than two rivals,” he says.
“It is fundamental to our masterplan that we add to the character of the city as well as to its facilities. We have to make sure we build something more than a covered shopping mall.”
With another £1.2m land acquisition in view – this time for a prominent 10,000 sq ft office building – Bretherton says progress is rapid. He points out that the council has agreed in principle to compulsory purchase orders, and a shortlist of developers has been drawn up. The preferred developer will be chosen next year.
Centros Miller, Stanhope and Modus are the three short-listed developers, and Modus is already regarded as the likely eventual winner among property players. Modus development director Neal Dale has no doubts that retailers will be queuing for space in the Edgar Street retail scheme.
“Hereford has a few national multiples, but the problem is that the existing centre is underprovided with modern retail units,” says Dale. “The Edgar Street project is a fantastic opportunity to provide them. One outstanding absence is Debenhams, which has a requirement for a large store, and if it took 100,000 sq ft in Edgar Street, which would be the obvious choice, then we’d be able to let the rest.”
Modus has 350,000 sq ft of retail space along with 75,000 sq ft of leisure space in mind. With a cinema and restaurants included, Dale says its plans would help to improve Hereford’s “family” offer.
According to Colliers CRE, retail rents in Hereford continue to lag behind local rival Worcester by about 25%. Modus – and the othershort-listed developers – will be hoping that that means Hereford has room for growth.
In five years’ time, when the Edgar Street retail scheme opens, it will be obvious whether they are right.
Road to opportunities encounters history
The discovery on site of a vast 4,000-year-old serpent-shaped stone pathway was the latest in a long list of twists in the saga of the Rotherwas bypass.
Construction workers stumbled on the ancient landmark – created in 2000 BC, making it older than Stonehenge – earlier this month as work on the bypass began.
It followed the earlier discovery of a Neolithic hut, a Bronze Age trackway and Roman boundary enclosures.
It has sometimes looked as if the £12m road project itself stretches back into history. Public inquiries, protests and delays have been prominent features of its long history.
The 2-mile road will help to secure economic growth and the generation of jobs at the Rotherwas Industrial Estate, as well as providing a flood-free access route.
The road, which will link the A49 at Grafton with the estate, will open up 25 acres of commercial development land. Without the road, many fear that Hereford will simply be too remote, and too poorly supplied with land, to stand a chance of recovering from a long, agricultural-led economic slump.
Nigel Hudson, development team leader at Advantage West Midlands, insists that the road is vital. “Rotherwas is the commercial focus for Hereford and employs 4,000 people. The road means we’ll have another 25 acres of serviced industrial land by 2010,” he says.
The £17.5m Rotherwas Futures project is already bearing fruit. AWM backing has led to the creation of some modest units up to 6,000 sq ft
