Herefordshire has slipped over the past twenty years from slightly below the UK average of wealth created per person, to close to the bottom.

This is according to the first report by the Herefordshire 2030 Project, a non-aligned team of county professionals launched a year ago with the backing of Herefordshire Council and the RSA, the royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce.

Herefordshire’s economy has seen almost no real-term growth in two decades, the report, titled “What the hell happened?”, says. In fact its financial and manufacturing sectors both contracted in absolute terms during the period.

The 2011 census showed 1,565 people worked in the relatively well-paying finance and insurance sector - but many of these jobs will now have gone for good, the report says.

Manufacturing in the county has meanwhile contracted by £86 million, with much of the decline in the last five years.

Yet Herefordshire isn’t cheap. Average house prices now top £300,000, putting it mid-table among England's counties, and making ownership near-impossible for many starting on the housing ladder.

The report also claims Hereford’s “visitor offer is weak compared to some other UK cities of a similar size”.

However a couple of bright spots have kept the county’s economy from an even poorer placing. Its IT and communications sector has put on yearly growth of over 8 per cent over the past twenty years, outperforming the national rate and more than making up for the contraction in manufacturing.

Herefordshire now also boasts a defence and security IT “cluster” centred on the recently opened Centre for Cyber Security in Hereford’s Enterprise Zone and the Special Forces Signal Squadron at Credenhill, alongside GCHQ in Cheltenham and defence tech firm QinetiQ in Malvern.

Herefordshire’s utilities sector has also benefited from investment by Western Power and Welsh Water and the local rollout of broadband.

Herefordshire Council was asked for comment.