Council pledges reserve cash to finance bypass review

Herefordshire Council leaders approved setting aside £360,000 of reserve funding tonight to pay for the review into the plans for a city bypass and southern link road.

The funding will be moved from the council’s financial resilience earmarked reserve to meet the review costs of the Hereford Transport and South Wye Transport packages.

Transport and infrastructure chief John Harrington decided to pause and review both schemes after Herefordshire Independent, Green Party and It’s Our County councillors formed coalition administration last year.

Councillor Harrington confirmed the review programme of the Hereford Transport and South Wye transport packages earlier this month.

And officers will now be authorised to complete the work within a total budget of £451,000. The reviews have a deadline of July 31, 2020.

Finance and corporate services cabinet member Liz Harvey said the review of transport solutions for Hereford is a hugely important piece of work.

Councillor Harrington said: “Getting our transport strategy really, significantly and thouroughly reviewed is long over due.

“Reliance on two road projects that would not deliver a bridge for seven years has not been a prudent way to go forward.”

Any decision on the future of both the western bypass and southern link road is not expected to take place until September at the earliest.

The independent peer review of the road schemes will cost up to £91,000 and will be funded from the local transport plan and Hereford transport plan capital budgets.

The council says it will deliver the transport strategy review and supporting consultation within a budget of £360,000 which will be funded from financial resilience reserve established to fund this type of activity.

The chief finance officer in discussion with the chief executive and council leader has approved the financial resilience reserve money to pay for the review.

The planned link road would connect the A49 Ross road with the A465 Abergavenny road.

While the proposed bypass is to continue from the A465 across the river Wye and linking with the A49 north of the city.

However, the road schemes were dealt a major blow this week as the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership cancelled the £27m funding agreement it had with the council for the southern link road which is considered the fist phase of the bypass.