In responding to my recent letter to the Ledbury Reporter, Cllr Anthony Bradford asks upon what factual basis I claim that the town centre is Ledbury’s largest source of jobs and income.

Research carried out under the auspices of Campaign to Protect Rural England by local volunteers showed that in 2011, shops in the town centre employ over 500 people. Businesses supporting shops and restaurants in town employ a further 700. That’s a total of 1,200 jobs. The annual turnover of shops in Ledbury and its suppliers within 30 miles is around £50 million. There are in the region of 80,000 customer visits to shops in Ledbury each week. Shops in Ledbury support additional jobs in other local businesses and services –  such as local  accountants, estate agents, stationers, solicitors, window cleaners, tradespeople, and delivery firms. All of these businesses rely upon trade from local shops. It's an economic web.

Tourism is one of Herefordshire’s and Ledbury’s major industries and attracts large amounts of money into the local economy. In 2008 this injection of spending into Herefordshire totalled £411m supporting 8,500 jobs directly and indirectly (Source: Herefordshire Tourism Strategy).  If we assume conservatively that Ledbury accounted for 20% of that economic benefit (it is probably more than that), then over £80 million was generated in our town supporting 1,700 jobs. Visitors to Ledbury come here to see the heritage buildings and to enjoy the thriving traditional high street (and they might need to use a loo!), so it is logical to say that the local tourism economy is heavily dependent on an attractive thriving town centre.

None of these figures take into account the enormous upkeep costs of our immaculate heritage buildings, which in turn sustain small armies of specialist workers in buildings conservation and related trades. Nor do they include the engineering industries that service the food and agricultural sectors.

Ledbury town centre is not only a vibrant town, a focus for community spirit, but is an engine of economic activity. We are a country town, based in a rich beautiful agricultural area. Our major industries – and employers – are thus food production and supply, and tourism. We tamper with the ingredients of our prosperity at our peril.

[Email sent to Bill Wiggin MP on 28 January]

Dear Bill

Well done on securing a visit from the rail minister to see Ledbury’s rail problems first hand; thanks for your efforts.  Some points I should like made to Mr Hammond include:

Disabled and pushchair access for the north platform is impossible. I understand passengers are advised that the only safe (and legal) route is to take a train to Hereford, before swapping to a north-bound service returning via Ledbury an hour later. (Full fare payable). Clearly this is indefensible.

Waiting facilities. Despite the provision of waiting shelters, seating provision and waiting space is insufficient at busy times meaning passengers have to endure the elements, sometimes for substantial periods when delays occur, which are not infrequent.

Doubling of track must be a priority to reduce delays and allow more frequent services, particularly at peak times. This is particularly important given the projected population increases in Hereford and Ledbury over the next few years, as well as securing essential inward investment into the county to provide jobs.

Rolling stock. Having enjoyed the comfortable (if crowded) Turbostar services up to Birmingham and back for a number of years, we are now dismayed that London Midland have now deployed a number of the clapped out Class 150 units, supposedly pensioned off from the Snow Hill line last year, onto our Hereford service. While LMT claim the units have been upgraded to provide a ‘comfortable passenger experience’, I can assure you that they are frankly horrible to travel in.  With five seats abreast, poor sound insulation, terrible ventilation/air conditioning and a harsh, noisy ride, the 30 year old Class 150s are wholly unsuitable for a medium distance 1.5 hour service between Birmingham and Hereford.  It seems LMT have cannibalised our Turbostars for use on the Chase Valley line up to Rugeley (which by the way is being electrified right now).  Please could you find out why LMT managers have downgraded our service in favour of another area, especially as our passenger numbers continue to grow? 

Services to and from London. I probably don’t need to say how frustrating it is that there are no through trains to Hereford during the afternoon, all terminating at Malvern and necessitating a lengthy weight for a connection onwards.  One train at least mid afternoon to Hereford should be reinstated.

Connections at Birmingham New Street. In the old days you could take a train right through from Herefordshire to Nottingham. When the franchises were changed, this convenient service came to an end, but the real iniquity is that the timetable managers managed to schedule the Derby-Nottingham onward service to leave a few minutes before the Hereford train arrived at New Street.  This is just a prime example of the lack of joined up thinking when it comes to rail travel throughout our region.  

OK it’s inconvenient and frustrating at an individual level but these kind of inconveniences accumulate to succeed in putting a break on our economic prospects here in the County. Rather than treating us an afterthought - planners should be prioritising the outlying areas such as ours for investment in infrastructure and careful consideration in delivery in order to stimulate economic growth and promote individual well-being. It makes me smart with annoyance when I travel down the line and see the marvellous upgrades that the Cotswold stations have received, and onwards into London where money is apparently no object, while here in Ledbury we have received precisely nothing over the years.

I am very happy to put these points politely to the Minister when he comes to visit, should you think that might be worthwhile.


Photo: http://myrailwaystation.com/

Visitors to Ledbury are mostly delighted by the look of our unusual town centre – its big wide street flanked by an imposing terrace of beautifully conserved ancient buildings, the flowers, the brightly painted shops and the bustling energy of the place. But they also respond to another more subtle charm which is to do with its atmosphere. People enthuse about how friendly and welcoming is Ledbury, a real gem of a country town. That magic keeps the tourists and shoppers coming year after year and pulls a lot of revenue into our economy.

But what about local people, do they share those warm feelings?  One of the measures that social scientists use to assess the health and well-being of a place is its sense of connectedness, and how positively local people feel about where they live. In places where local pride is weak, you can soon spot the tell-tale signs: litter, graffiti, petty crime and anti-social behaviour. People just don’t bother anymore.  

Where ‘community capital’ is strong on the other hand, there is a lots of voluntary activity as people willingly participate in their collective prosperity, radiating an abundance of positive energy. There is pride and enthusiasm, even passion.

So which side is Ledbury on?

At the height of the superstore question in 2011, we organised some research into local people’s perceptions of Ledbury. We used some standard questions from the Government’s ‘Five Minute Health Check’ to see how Ledbury feels about itself, questions like “does the high street make you proud?”, “if it were someone else’s high street, would you want to go back there?”, “is there a wide range of shops and facilities?”.  We also asked people to sum up Ledbury in a word. And finally we checked which side of the supermarket question they were on: for an out of town Sainsbury’s or Tesco’s, or against.  Out of 240 responses (a good sample size), 30% percent of participants were in favour of a Sainsbury’s, 10% unsure and 60% against, a fair spread of opinion.

The message coming back was clear and heartening. Most Ledbury people love their town centre and feel proud of it – whether they supported a new superstore or not. Aside from some small variations in age and socio-economic position the main findings varied little between the pro’s and anti’s. The vast majority of survey respondents felt very positive about our town. The cutting nick-name of ‘Deadbury’ was simply not supported by the evidence.

A large majority of local people were proud of their town centre. 60% of people said they were very proud, while a further 24% say they were ‘quite proud’. Just 15% felt not proud or unsure.

In describing Ledbury, 80% of people suggested positive words including vibrant, unique, interesting, attractive, welcoming, friendly, excellent, good. See the ‘Word Cloud’ above.

We asked ‘if Ledbury were someone else’s High Street, would you want to go back there’. This was a useful question in asking people to think about the town through the eyes of a visitor, perhaps slightly more objectively, less coloured by one’s own values and beliefs. The result showed that 70% of respondents said ‘Yes Definitely’ that they would want to go back to Ledbury. A further 24% said ‘Perhaps’ while just 8% of respondents said ‘No not at all’.

No, Ledbury’s not perfect, but it’s clear that people – whether visitors or residents – feel very positively about this place.  And it's fair to claim that we are a Community Capital.


Read the full report here.

When property developer Mr Philip King last summer unveiled his plans for a superstore on Lawnside Road, his audience of town councillors and general public gasped in disbelief. It’ll never happen, they said, the planners will never let it happen. Really?

There are of course so many good reasons why a 30 thousand square foot superstore on Lawnside would be terrible news for Ledbury. Traffic concerns and goods vehicle access in an already congested Bye Street, and the demolition of several important community buildings would seem to be showstoppers for Mr King. And, like the out of town Sainsbury’s which was rejected two years ago, the sheer size of the development exceeds the Council’s own estimates of retail capacity in the town stretching far into the future. Game set and match to Ledbury then. Or is it?

Inconveniently for Ledbury, Mr King has got lots of planning trump cards up his sleeve. In efforts to stimulate the economy, Government has introduced new very relaxed planning rules which presume in favour of building development whatever, wherever. Mr Pickles, the minister in charge of planning, has also restated his absolute commitment to a ‘Town Centres First’ policy, preferring retail developments to be clustered in or near town centres, and not like Sainsbury’s last Ledbury offensive, on the edge or out of town.  For all its free-market free-for-all planning bluster, the top planners do seem to have retained a shred of commitment to stopping the High Street rot. Thanks must go to valiant Mary Portas and her town centre crusade for that.

So on planning grounds, a superstore for Lawnside is looking good for King. It’s town centre retail. It’s not going to drain footfall from the High Street, at least by official definitions. It’s building development.  From the planning viewpoint, what’s not to like?

Traffic has to be one of the big impediments. But even here, planners and highways engineers have cunning ways. We could see all kinds of creative solutions: parking restrictions down Lower Road, a one way system, lorry access along a service road parallel with the Town Trail, traffic lights at the Homend/Bye Street junction.  Anyway, who’s to say that there’s going to be that much extra traffic? Mr King might argue that Ledbury is supposed to be trying to get more shoppers into the centre of town, not less.

The swimming pool and community hall issue is easily disposed of. Out of the massive profits that such a lucrative superstore development would yield in the long term, Mr King will happily toss a few million quid into a new cheap and nasty sports-swimming-community facility, either on a portion of the Rec, or a bit further out. Does he care?  Herefordshire Council appear to be willing participants in the plan. Rumours at first denied, but now semi-official, suggest that King has agreed to take over the running costs of the swimming pool for an interim six months plus getting the Council to defer its refurbishment plans, pending the planning application outcome. It’s an ideal arrangement for a bankrupt Herefordshire Council.

Meantime, Fire Service chiefs are busy running down the service, with the loss of one standing fire tender and would, it seems happily move out of centre if the price were right. Ditto the other landlords affected. Let’s not also forget Mr King has already snapped up the Ambulance Station.  Right now, he must be smiling in anticipation.

But there is a glimmer of hope. There is one cogent argument against this proposal that may sway the planning committee. It is the matter of its sheer massive volume.

Mr King’s superstore at Lawnside Road of 30 thousand square feet is of identical dimensions to that proposed by Sainsbury’s a mile out of town on the by-pass. This was turned down decisively by planners because it would damage the economic vitality of the town centre by overwhelming the town’s retail capacity - an opinion confirmed in five separate studies by retail planning experts.  There is just not enough retail business to go round to support what we have in Ledbury already, plus another superstore bigger than the existing Coop and Tesco stores combined.

A 30 thousand square foot superstore monster – whether on Lawnside or the by-pass - is just too big for our small town. Think of it this way. The proposed shed would comfortably hold every living person in Ledbury without their touching each other. At a stroke it would more than double our existing supermarket provision. Where is all that extra business going to come from? And this at a time when the ‘Big Four’ supermarket operators are rapidly moving away from out of town superstore development into town centre convenience store formats. In case anyone hadn’t noticed, the retail economy is just about as flat as a supermarket car-park.

There are many people in Ledbury who would welcome a makeover in Lawnside Road. With imagination and sensitivity, the area could be transformed into a fine-looking, high quality environment for community use, modest independent retail provision and provide for some much needed apartment style housing.  And it could still accommodate a swimming pool and a new community hall.  Why can’t we have our cake and eat it?

Rather than one big faceless out-of-date-before-it’s-even-built supermarket shed, why doesn’t Mr King pick up the phone and have a chat with people about some different options, positive solutions, things that add to rather than subtract from Ledbury’s delights.

He might still make a mint on his speculative property deal – but at least Ledbury might not get sold down the river in the process.

Oscar Wilde said a cynic knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. Yes, public finances are very tight but in their quest to save money, both our Town and County Councils are cutting into the very fabric of our economic and social well-being.

Already one of the public toilets in town is to be closed. There are apparently serious proposals to cancel the town centre’s wonderful floral displays this summer. There is a possibility the new Library might never even open its doors. Where will it end? Do away with the litter bins? Stop street cleaning? Let the roads disintegrate completely?

These cuts are short-sighted and counter-productive. As Ledbury’s largest source of jobs and income, it is in everyone’s interest that our town centre is protected and strengthened – not subject to a slow death by a thousand cuts.

Is it beyond the wit of our Town councillors to use some imagination and effort? A one-off investment in coin-operated locks could raise enough revenue in future years to maintain the loos.  The floral displays not only attract huge numbers of tourists but also make our town beautiful for our own residents – why not a few pennies on our local Council Tax, or a scheme to seek sponsorship, or a planned fund-raiser?  These amenities are investments that attract paying customers to our town which support jobs.

There is no commercial logic in cutting away at the very source of your future prosperity, especially in such a fiercely competitive retail climate. Ledbury needs to hold its head up and invest in the future, not let it slip through its fingers.  Hopefully residents will write to the Town Council and let them know what they want for our town, and offer ideas too.