Herefordshire MP remains flatly opposed to bypass project

North Herefordshire’s Green MP remains flatly opposed to the Hereford bypass project, despite a new campaign to gain support for it including in Government circles.

Ellie Chowns said she had been invited to Wednesday’s (March 25) launch of the Back the Bypass campaign in the city’s Green Dragon Hotel, but had been unable to attend due to parliamentary commitments.

But she said: “It was unclear to me why a campaign launch event was taking place at all, given the campaign for a bypass has been ongoing for at least 50 years.”

For Herefordshire Council to “relaunch” it now “is impractical and unrealistic – there is no prospect of the government putting hundreds of millions of pounds into a project with such a poor business case”, she maintained.

And referring to the £45 million from loans to the council to fund just the initial phase from the A49 to A465, she said this “just saddles the next generation with yet more unsustainable debt”.

The full-north-to-south bypass would meanwhile “cost at least a quarter of a billion pounds, money that would be much better spent on improving the condition of the roads we already have”, as well as measures to make non-car travel easier in the city, Dr Chowns said.

“These would go much further to reduce traffic and make room on the roads for people who really need it.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, local transport campaigner Amanda Martin said a 2014 study for the previous Conservative-run council forecast that after the building of a bypass, “travel levels would return to pre-bypass levels within five years”.

She asked Coun Philip Price, then as now Cabinet member for transport, “why the council pushed on with the road in light of that report, and why it was ignored”.

Coun Price replied: “Sometimes in life you have to take a risk. I’m not a transport planner. But the fundamentals are that if we don’t have this bypass, we are going to not allow Herefordshire to grow.”

Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire Jesse Norman, also prevented from appearing due to parliamentary commitments, said: “I have always supported the idea of a Three Bridges road strategy for Hereford, which includes a western bypass  and an eastern link road.

“Since the present Labour government has still failed to provide the necessary funding, the burden for this road will now fall on taxpayers in Herefordshire.”