CASH-strapped Herefordshire Council has dropped a Lottery funding bid for the much-needed makeover of Castle Green, Hereford.

At a meeting on Monday night, the community services scrutiny committee heard that the bid's 50/50 chance of success was not worth the estimated £150,000 that would have to be paid out on consultancy fees and other expertise alone.

Instead the council would commit £30,000 to helping the Friends of Castle Green get grant aid for improvements.

The meeting heard Mark Hubbard, from the Friends, welcome that help, but question the council's consultation estimates as a good excuse not to go ahead.

Local people made the best, cheapest consultants and could look to the long-term, he said.

The decision to drop lottery funding does not affect work to get the Green's Nelson memorial shipshape for the Trafalgar bicentenary later this year.

Other spin-offs, such as the cleansing of Castle Pool and improvements to the Victoria footbridge, also stay in the council's spending plans.

But any major investment of time and money would concentrate on priority projects, like the enhancement of the city centre, work on Cathedral Close and Friar Street Heritage Centre, Hereford, and the St Katherine's site in Ledbury, said parks and countryside manager Tony Featherstone.

The council was still ready to "regenerate" Castle Green once commitments and resources allowed, and another Lottery bid to that effect might be something for the future, he added.

Mayor, Councillor Marcelle Lloyd-Hayes, told the meeting that the £2 million the council earned annually from car parking could be put towards Castle Green - a payback for the huge contribution the city makes to the county's coffers.