Festive News 2017 Dec. 2014 | Page 33

Festive News readers can help promote Hereford FESTIVE NEWS • DECEMBER 2014 • PAGE 33 Hereford’s new £90m shopping and leisure complex on the old livestock market is a great success story. But meanwhile in the historic city centre core with High Town as its hub Herefordshire Council’s abject failure to establish a city wide regeneration strategy has resulted in many national retailers moving their business to the Old Market development. The High Town zone has too many empty shops, a Butter Market desperately in need of the facelift the council promised years ago and worse still a general air of neglect as the council cut back on basic street cleaning. Now shop owners are taking matters into their own hands and have launched a campaign to win Government approval for Business Improvement District status which if granted would permit a voluntary 1% to be added to standard business rates and the money raised spent on improving and promoting Hereford as a key shopping destination. John Jones, managing partner of the family firm, Philip Morris, said: “This scheme is vital to the future of the city centre. It \