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The long-awaited enterprise zone at Model Farm off the A40 southeast of Ross-on-Wye is finally about to happen.

Herefordshire Council’s service director for economy and growth Roger Allonby said the first phase of the project, for which £8 million has been earmarked, is already “toward the end of” the detailed design stage.

Acknowledging there has been “pent-up frustration in Ross” over lack of progress at the council-owned site for many years, he said: “We will be going out to find a contractor towards the end of this year or very start of next, and hope to be on-site starting to do the physical work in March-April.”

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There will then be “a 12-month-ish period of works to create the development-ready plots”, he explained, adding: “That’s not building buildings, that’s putting in the access roads and developing the plots.”

Selling the plots to companies “will then start in about 18 months’ time” – by which time a body would need to be in place to market them.

The council is being advised by Mark Pearce, managing director of Skylon Park, the successful enterprise zone that has been developed over the last 12 years in Rotherwas southeast of Hereford.

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Mr Price told councillors that there had been “a bit of cynicism” about the Ross scheme from businesses, but that once physical work begins on the site, “that will transform interest levels”.

“By [next] autumn you want clarity in the businesses you want to see there, and the businesses you don’t, and how you approach them,” he added.

Coun Diana Toynbee said it was “disappointing that we have decided to sell this land”, so forgoing future rental revenue from it, and added the zone should favour “home-grown” companies.

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Mr Pearce said 80 per cent of investment in Skylon “has been businesses growing locally into the zone – so that has worked”.

For the council to build and let out its own units, as has partly been the case at Skylon, “you would have to make that bigger financial outlay”, he added.

Mr Allonby suggested “a blended approach” to land tenure was most likely at Model Farm.