ROSS-on-Wye and the county’s other market towns are being held back by lack of land for workplaces, skills and employment shortages, and poorly developed tourism, according to a new series of proposals from Herefordshire Council.

If approved by the council’s cabinet, the Market Town Investment Plans (MTIPs), drawn up by an external firm, Rose Regeneration, will guide how the council spends money to support economic recovery and development in each of the county’s market towns.

According to the plans, Ross-on-Wye “lacks employment land” and “has fewer jobs per head than the Herefordshire average”. It also has “dilapidated leisure infrastructure” and “tired public realm”.

And all five - Ross, Ledbury, Leominster, Kington and Bromyard - meanwhile suffer from “weak visitor economies”, despite their tourism potential, the plans say.

But each of these shortcomings can be overcome.

Ross Development Trust is well placed to develop a number of forthcoming projects to support the town’s visitor economy, its plan says.

And Ledbury has “potential for high tech business units to provide incubator space”, particularly by the viaduct, where three hectares have been earmarked for business units.

Identifying priorities for each town, and the business cases for them, will make it easier to bid for central government funding, particularly where such bids have to be made by communities themselves, Herefordshire Council says.

It has already set aside funding ‘employment land and incubator space in market towns’ (ELIS) programme to bring forward land to support business growth.

The town plans identify two candidate projects for this funding: land in Ledbury currently owned by Heineken, and a potential mixed development on the council’s Model Farm site in Ross-on-Wye.