YOUR front page article on the Edgar Street Grid prompts me to ask if there is any merit in the scheme at all.

The existing plan, as I understand it, requires the relocation of the nearly 200 businesses and 4,000 jobs established in the redevelopment area a year ago yet neither ESG nor Herefordshire Council has offered any adequate alternative premises.

The many businesses involved may not be the most aesthetically pleasing but they provide goods and services to their customers and provide a variety of employment both in terms of skills and career prospects.

Seemingly, this is to be swept away for housing and a retail development with little to offer in the way of jobs to keep the young people of Hereford in the county.

I cannot see the economic benefit to Hereford in the scheme. Rents will be paid to landlords based elsewhere, youngsters will continue to move away and there will be little inflow of cash as it is unrealistic to think that ESG will attract thousands of shoppers from other areas, as Hereford did 25 years or more ago.

When will Herefordshire Council actively encourage new and small businesses, as well as existing ones, which will create the wealth and jobs needed to stop the city’s decline?

EDDIE HUNT, Address supplied.