THE man who chaired the working party responsible for producing the Great Malvern Town Centre Strategy still believes the town could become a successful 'arts town'.

John Ford led Malvern Hills District Council's town centre regeneration working party and came up with the idea for the National Water-colour Centre, included in the 1996 strategy.

While he says he is sometimes relieved that some ideas it contained did not progress and go the way of other ill-fated Lottery projects elsewhere in the country he believes Malvern and the arts are intrinsically linked.

"There are quite a number of themes but arts would be a very strong one because Malvern does have a very strong tradition of it," said Mr Ford, who is no longer a district councillor.

"There are all different types of arts that I still think are very strong. It is a spa town and that is a theme, particularly with the Hills, which attracts a lot of people. It also goes with Malvern being in many ways a spiritual place, attracting people for its spirituality and perhaps even alternative medicines.

"We could harness that natural interest in Malv-ern and move it forward."

Mr Ford says many of the initiatives in the strategy, including a Heritage Centre, the Watercolour Gallery and a one-way system in Church Street were examined in detail, a public meeting was held on the latter, but were found not to be viable.

"One of the major problems the council had was it kept coming back to revenue," he explained.

"The council was spending so much money on the Theatres at that time, well over £300,000 a year, that it really didn't have much money for anything else."