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Saturday, September 30, 2023

Hereford having 'really good meetings' with council about Blackfriars End future

A temporary stand in the Blackfriars End during the 2011/12 season
Hereford's chairman Chris Ammonds has said the club is having productive meetings with Herefordshire Council about redeveloping the Blackfriars End.

Currently, the club do not hold a lease for the dilapidated stand which was closed way back in 2009. Temporary seating was then brought after this before work to improve half of the terrace.

But since the club reformed, that end of the ground has not been in permanent use. It has occasionally been used to house a catering van for away supporters and the club can use it to access things like the water tanks which are behind the stand.

Earlier this year, Herefordshire Council also agreed to grant a temporary licence for the club to occupy the stand's "land and buildings".

This is in order to improve the facilities and welfare for away supporters.

This move is only until the club can find a permanent solution, and Hereford FC chair Stig has said meetings are happening between the club and Herefordshire Council, which owns the land, about the Blackfriars End.

Herefordshire Council cabinet members were expected to approve the first stage of a redevelopment project at a meeting in March 2020, but that was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The initial £14.375m regeneration plans focused on providing student and or key worker accommodation, a community room and spectator provision located on Blackfriars Street at Hereford Football Club.

A year later, cabinet members agreed to look again at the scheme. But, publicly at least, very little appeared to materialise.

Since then, the political makeup of the council has changed and the Greens-Independent coalition is no more. The Conservatives now hold the most number of seats. 

Before the elections, the club had met with Ross Cook, corporate director for economy and environment at the council. While officers like Mr Cook are still in a job, the councillors who make the big decisions are different.

After that meeting in February, the club said they had been invited to submit a proposal for a "club and community" facility at the Blackfriars End, which would provide additional revenue streams in years to come for Hereford FC to be invested back into the club.

The council was also said to be "open to conversations about other areas of the ground that could, one day, be in need of upgrade or refurbishment".

"Hereford FC welcomes this open dialogue and the appetite shown by Herefordshire Council to work with and help the football club, whilst improving the aesthetics of certain areas and providing better facilities and opportunities for the local community," the club said in February.

Club director Darren Ball, a retired police officer, has more recently had "really good meetings" about the Blackfriars End with the council, Stig told Bulls News.

He said those meetings had gone "really positively" and there could be more news in the future either from the club or the council.