Up to £800,000 is about to be spent simply to work up a plan to prevent flooding in Hereford’s Merton Meadows, in readiness for building on it.

Herefordshire Council’s cabinet member for economy and growth Coun Graham Biggs is due to approve the spend, out of the £2-million Brownfield Land Release Fund from the government which the council accepted nearly three years ago.

It will be used “to masterplan the area including the detailed flood alleviation design required to enable these key city centre sites to come forward for development”, the proposed decision says.

RELATED NEWS:

The council expects to spend £600,000 of the sum this financial year – that is, by the end of March, and the remainder in the following year.

What are your thoughts?

You can send a letter to the editor to have your say by clicking here.

Letters should not exceed 250 words and local issues take precedence.

Currently mostly used for car parking, the area north and northwest of Hereford FC’s Edgar Street stadium has not previously been developed due to a recurring problem of flooding from the culverted Yazor brook.

The draft masterplan for the city, currently being revised, proposes an “intergenerational urban village” around new public green space, comprising “a mixture of affordable homes, market homes, retirement living, student living and commercial space on Council-owned land, including the car park at Merton Meadows”.

The council completed the £4-million Yazor brook flood alleviation scheme to the northwest of the city 12 years ago, which was intended to offer some protection to flood-prone areas north of the city centre.