Hereford City Bypass: What happens next?

Herefordshire’s transport chief has set out the steps towards starting work on the Hereford bypass before the next county election.

Herefordshire Council’s Cabinet member for transport Coun Philip Price explained that the approach it has now committed to for the first phase of the scheme is intended to protect the council against any shock increases in its forecast £40-million cost, mostly coming out of council coffers.

Under this approach, after a “mini-competition” between the main civil engineering contractors, “we will have a cost for the job by next summer, which we can hold them to”, he said.

Acquiring the land for “phase 1”, between the A49 and A465 southwest of the city, is also “mostly sorted”, with the council’s strategy for this now agreed.

Though details of this have not been made public, an accompanying report said the council was avoiding using compulsory purchase orders for this as being “adversarial” and liable to lead to legal challenges and a “costly and time-consuming” public inquiry, “as happened in the previous iteration of the scheme”.

But this approach could still “speed up the process if the council is unable to obtain the land through negotiation”, it says.
With councillors also having green-lighted the project funding, “we can then mobilise for the start of the actual work, which we hope will be by December next year”, Coun Price said.

Meanwhile there will be a “complete review” of the existing plan for the main, “phase 2” section, from Belmont across the river Wye to Holmer in the north, with a “statement of business case” due in a year’s time.

“We need to ask, does it do the right things, will it fit with the new housing we have to cater for,” Coun Price said, adding he favoured the idea of a new “economic corridor” down the west side of the city to address the government’s demand for more development in Herefordshire.

This will also take traffic, including lorries, out of Hereford itself, “making room for other forms of transport,” Coun Price said. “It’s multi-faceted.”

He added that the existing phase 2 plan, cancelled by the previous county administration, “takes more or less the right route”. And the council “will look to government to fund some or all of it”.