This story is only available to Hereford Times subscribers.
Click here to find out why and how to subscribe for exclusive stories.

The long-awaiting Hereford bypass scheme can now begin in earnest, a Herefordshire leader has said.

The council is due to approve next month what it calls “the procurement route to enable the Hereford Western Bypass to move to it’s construction stage”.

Already £30 million has been earmarked this year alone on what the council is calling phase one of the bypass, which will link the A465 and A49 southwest of the city.

RELATED NEWS:

“Currently lorries come up the A465 into Hereford and out to Rotherwas,” Cabinet member for finance Coun Pete Stoddart said. “This will take 15 per cent of traffic out of the city.”

Phase two, the bypass “proper” across the Wye and up the west side of the city, will then be “a growth corridor for employment as well as housing” – the case for which is only strengthened by the government’s higher demands on the county to build more new homes, he said.

“We will meet that demand, but they have to help us provide the road and the infrastructure” – while the developers of all these new homes “will assist us in paying for the road”, he added.

What are your thoughts?

You can send a letter to the editor to have your say by clicking here.

Letters should not exceed 250 words and local issues take precedence.

This will take “till the early to mid-2030s”. But by diverting traffic out of the city it will also “let Hereford breathe again” and enable a more diverse transport mix within it.

He dismissed opposition parties’ preferred option of an eastern crossing over the Wye as “a road to nowhere”, adding: “From Rotherwas, most traffic wants to go north, not east.”

A map of the proposed Hereford western bypass route A map of the proposed Hereford western bypass route Coun Terry James, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the county and long-time backer of the bypass, said he believed there was “a strong chance the government will fund the first phase” – though he added: “We have to show we are keen to do it anyway.”

The Welsh government meanwhile “are very supportive of upgrading the A49, as Hereford is a block on traffic moving between south Wales and the Midlands”, he said.

OTHER NEWS:

But Hereford Civic Society chairman Jeremy Milln, also a Hereford city councillor, said that aside from the cost, there remain “an awful lot of bureaucratic bridges to cross” before the bypass can happen.

And given the long timescales involved, there was a “lively possibility” that a different administration in the county following elections in 2027 could “rethink” the whole bypass plan, as the previous Green-Independents for Herefordshire (i4H) coalition did in 2019.

The current Green and i4H groups were asked for comment.