Nearly a million spent on dropped city plan

Herefordshire Council spent nearly a million pounds working up a masterplan for how Hereford should develop in the coming years – before dropping it and starting again.

In spring 2023, shortly before local elections which brought a change in power in the county, the council, then under joint Independents for Herefordshire and Green control, published a draft city masterplan for public consultation.

This radical vision proposed that by 2050, Hereford should have less traffic in its historic core, thanks to more one-way and pedestrianised streets, and car parks given over to housing or green space, along with low-traffic neighbourhoods elsewhere in the city.

According to a response to a Freedom of Information request to Herefordshire Council, “Between 2021/22 and 2023/24, around £981,000 was spent on developing this earlier masterplan, including a number of evidence gathering studies, transport planning, surveys and data analysis aimed at deepening understanding of the city’s opportunities and challenges.”

The council added that this evidence gathered from this “was also utilised to support other strategies, such as the Local Plan consulted on in summer 2024”.

But under the incoming minority-Conservative administration, the council did not pursue the masterplan, which it considered “anti-car”.

Instead it restarted the process last year with new public consultation, initially only on the Merton Meadow area of the city, where a new “urban village” remains an aspiration, as with the previous city plan.

The council then invited views online on its draft Hereford 2050 City Masterplan in December and January.

But with little publicity, this drew just 11 responses, while both the city council and Hereford Civic Society said they were not told about it.

Asked about the cost of this exercise, Herefordshire Council said: “This element was delivered using internal resources, and therefore separate costs cannot be identified.”

The council’s Cabinet member for economy and growth Coun Graham Biggs said it was “in the early stages” of developing a city masterplan, “reflecting a renewed strategic approach including a commitment to develop the Hereford bypass”.