Hereford house prices: £286,995, up 4.7% in a year

Herefordshire is one council, one county and very little else in between. Hereford is the only city and holds about a third of the population. Leominster, Ross-on-Wye, Ledbury, Bromyard and Kington are the market towns, and the rest is farmland, orchards and villages spread thinly right up to the Welsh border.

Hereford Today reports what the record shows across all of it. Herefordshire Council has been a unitary authority since 1998, so planning, bins, roads, licensing, council tax, schools and social care all sit with the same body, and there is nobody else to pass the question to. It publishes the evidence for its decisions where almost nobody reads it. We read it and write down what it says, with a link to the document every time.

The three hubs

• News: the public record, including what the council is planning for the city and the market towns.
• Local Info: house prices, roadworks and parking, trains to London and things to do.
• What’s On: what is happening across the county this week.

Every fact links to the document it came from.