Hereford bypass scheme back on the table post-election

A controversial plan to build a bypass in Hereford is back on the table after supporting parties made election gains.

Both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats believe they picked up votes last Thursday because they are in favour of the scheme.

The parties campaigned on resurrecting plans shelved under the previous Independent and Green party coalition.

"People felt let down that the bypass was cancelled," Conservative leader Jonathan Lester said.

"It's really encouraging to note that key councillors that were associated with the bypass in the past have been re-elected," he added.

Lib Dem councillor Kevin Tillett agreed it was a key issue for voters: "One or two people even saying, 'I don't want a conversation; are you for the bypass or against it?'".

However Ellie Chowns, Green Party leader, said a bypass would not solve traffic problems: "We do need solutions to congestion but the bypass isn't it."

The debate on whether Hereford should get a river crossing has been raging more than 60 years.

Parties and leaders have debated, argued, won and lost seats and only a tiny part of any bypass has been built - the Rotherwas Access Road, known locally as the road to nowhere.

When the Conservatives were in charge previously they published a preferred route on a western crossing from Breinton to Holmer, linking the A49 trunk road.

The coalition of the Independents 4 Herefordshire and the Greens cancelled those plans, saying only 7% of the traffic was going through the city.

They concentrated on reducing car journeys and considered another river crossing - from Rotherwas to Hampton Dene.

Now we wait to see which parties work with each other to form the new coalition. But will anything happen before we face another election?

The bypass idea has also been attacked by retired Professor of Sustainable Transport John Whitelegg at Liverpool John Moores University, a Green party member who lost out to the Conservatives' former leader Roger Phillips in Arrow ward.

"It is astonishing that any political party would support this," he said, pointing to the spiralling costs of Shrewsbury's North West Relief Road for Shropshire Council.

The Conservatives, who gained nine seats, and the Liberal Democrats, who gained six, accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the votes cast in the county last Thursday.

The Independents lost 16 seats.

With no party gaining an outright majority, the Lib Dems are key to ongoing negotiations over which administration runs the county.

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