Tensions were flying high at Hereford city council's quarterly meeting this morning.
The city is gearing up for its largest development in a millennium, and the council probably thought it would never, in a thousand years, see quite so much opposition to it.
As I wrote previously local Councillor Mark Hubbard is leading the campaign group It's Our City, born solely out of opposition to developer Stanhope's proposed 382,000 sq ft shopping mall to be built in two phases in the city centre.
Hubbard attended the meeting, as did ESG Herefordshire, the regeneration body steering the city's revival. He presented a petition to the council of 9,800 signatures supporting his motion to "suspend, defer or delay" Stanhope's current plans.
Around 300 local residents also turned up in support, despite having to wait outside the council offices. But the voting didn't go in their favour.
Roger Phillips, leader of the council did, however, offer an olive branch. He stated that there was quite a lot of common ground between what the opponents and the council wish to achieve and offered informal talks with the group to reach a compromise. However, Hubbard was less than encouraged by this. He said: "The council has offered talks but there are no guarantees that they will listen."
He added: "But we are not going to go away. We are going to stick to it as there are better ways of bringing the regeneration forward."
Stanhope and the council have yet to sign a development agreement for a the project.
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