Hereford College of Arts and NMiTE's ambitions to expand are admirable. Rather than going for an edge of city 'campus' for large numbers of new students, NMiTE promised a blend of carefully adapted old and well designed college-style buildings within the City. Historic England's expert Urban Panel, visiting in October 2017, encouraged Herefordshire Council to develop a city master-plan and a design code to ensure the work would be sensitive, imaginative and orderly. It reminded the Council to deliver on its pledge for a transport hub, relieve Blueschool Street of traffic and enhance the setting of the listed station, marred by its City Link Road, with a pleasant landscaped plaza.

None of this advice has sunk in. Herefordshire Council still hasn't a master-plan, design code or commitment to deliver a balanced and integrated transport system. Instead of which its Cabinet, meeting on December 13, promotes a behemoth cooked up in secret months ago. Nearly 200 Art College and NMiTE students would be expected to inhabit a cold-war-style condominium sandwiched between a car-park and a mains sewer facing the railway lines and the city link road. There would be no green space or peace from its din and fumes.

The project is terribly urgent so we are told, perhaps to pre-empt coherent consideration. Architects Whittam Cox for Engie Ltd, which owns Keepmoat, responds with five storeys of factory prefabricated 'modules' to obstruct the station's principal aspect. Heaped up, bolted together and dressed with brick-effect panels, this would be a travesty for this 'gateway' location. Look no further than say Essex Arms or County Bus Station for better sites or Loughborough's halls for better designs.

Jeremy Milln

Hereford Civic Society