A look at the building projects expected in 2023

This week we are taking a look at the building projects in Herefordshire expected to get under way or to complete in 2023 across housing, infrastructure, commercial, farming and first, the Stronger Hereford package in improvements across the city.

The year ahead should see progress on the ground on several of these high-profile projects, for which £22 million of Government funding was confirmed last September.

Centrepiece of this is the planned transformation of the current museum and library on Broad Street, into a provisionally entitled Marches Experience – a modern exhibition space offering new views across the city’s rooftops.

Costing £15 million, of which £8 million is from Stronger Hereford, it is expected to house the Herefordshire Hoard, the mediaeval finds valued at nearly £800,000 which were secured for the county earlier this year.

Meanwhile, plans for a new £3 million city library, relocated from Broad Steet to occupy a large part of the central Maylord Orchards shopping centre, were submitted in early October but have yet to be formally approved.

Work on both projects is expected to begin in tandem in 2023, although there appears to have already been some slippage from the projects’ original timescales.

Another of the Stronger Hereford projects, to renovate the Castle Green Pavilion by the river Wye, received planning permission in November to become an arts and community space and café, as well as a revamped canoeing centre. Work is due to begin here in April.

The new Hereford cycling circuit within the city’s racecourse is also expected to be completed in 2023. The one-kilometre loop will be used for coaching, training and competitive cycling and other wheeled sports, while indoor facilities in former shipping containers are also planned.

A digital arts hub at Hereford Art College, another project to benefit from the fund, was also approved earlier this month.

The city can also expect electric buses, further “greening” of the city centre, and the Southside development of sports pitches, a community garden and employability measures, all partly funded by the Stronger Hereford cash, though timescales for these are less clear.