Hereford Bypass cancellation defended by Transport Chief

Herefordshire’s transport chief has hit out at those still calling for a bypass road to the west of Hereford, which the current administration voted to cancel in February.

Referring to letter writers to the Hereford Times in particular, cabinet member for infrastructure and transport Coun John Harrington told an online meeting: “Why pretend that if you vote for someone like the Conservatives who say they’re going to bring back the bypass, that it’s going to be anything less than 10 years to do that?”

Those supporting going back on the decision “are not going to solve any of the problems – they’re not responding to national government requirements for us to do things differently”, he said.

He added that “conservative-with-a-small-c” voters in his rural Hampton ward “are more in tune with the sustainable, environmental aspects of transport than some of the city folk who are buying into this bypass rubbish”.

However the council is still committed to as second road crossing over the Wye to the east of the city, which Coun Harrington said would be “somewhere to the east of Rotherwas, we are not yet entirely sure where”.

Explaining the delay in bringing this forward, he said: “We didn’t have the capacity, the consultants and the internal people in place until very recently. We hope that by early next year we will have a timeline we can share with people.”

But he stressed it would in no way be “an eastern bypass to replace the western one” and “would not be intended for HGVs”. Rather it would improve access in and around Hereford, serving the northeast of the city in particular.

Besides relieving congestion, it would increase transport resilience within the city, as the existing city-centre road bridge approaches the end of its originally anticipated 60-year lifespan, he said.

Confirming that the Conservative group still favoured the western bypass option, its leader Coun Jonathan Lester said: “The administration’s own transport strategy report concluded it was the best way to deal with congestion.

“My on view and that of the Conservative group is that it didn’t make sense to go against that. Hereford will have to build these roads anyway.”

He added that for the administration to now commit instead to build an eastern road crossing was “a head-scratching notion” in light of its sustainability policies.