Maggie May

I think we sometimes forget how much cars cost to run until you stop using them regularly. Like many things it is a habit and like America many of us have got out of the habit of NOT driving when we don't need to. It is surprising how much money you can save by walking with your children and how much less hassle over parking. With no in car radio and having to keep your eyes open I always enjoy walking with my children and we have some great conversation, play games and do things that I wouldn't do if I was driving them and getting stressed over parking near the school. etc. Much better for all our health and alot less stressful getting out of the car even if just one or two days a week. I also have that bit of extra money I have saved on fuel which can go back into the local economy. Can we start developing European transport habits as we have enough health problems from obesity following the American pattern.

I heard on the radio and have seen on the Hereford Times website the "rat running" happening in Mordiford, particularly by the primary school. Surely this is more of a problem and a danger to children and adults than the slow moving traffic on the A465 in Belmont at peak times? Will the Council look at improving the road situation on the East of Hereford with all the extra houses due to be built at Hampton Bishop and Bartestree. By the way today was a lovely day for not being in a car!

Whilst this topic is about the need for the Southern Link Road and the associated housing that will be needed to pay for it, what has happened to "sustainable" development. If this can happen elsewhere in Europe why not in Hereford? I heard at the Three Elms planning day when someone asked about what jobs these new homeowners would do the audience was told by the planners that the houses would be bought mainly by people moving to Herefordshire for retirement. Someone then asked about the higher value jobs that all this "growth" in roads and houses would bring and the audience was told that local people would be employed to maintain the gardens and clean the windows of these new homeowners. Sorry that is not my idea of sustainable growth and better jobs prospects for our young people. If all the new homeowners are people retiring to Herefordshire surely this just puts more pressure on the hospital and the adult social services, which Mr Johnson keeps telling us is the biggest cost to the County. How is any of this "sustainable"? Surely if there is money from developers it will be needed for health care not new roads if this is the type of population Herefordshire is going to be attracting. Instead of cycle paths surely we will need safe routes for mobility scooters.

Why would Herefordshire Council want to solve the traffic problems in Hereford? If you remember they reversed the traffic on Broad St/King St when the public warned them it would make things worse. They then had to reverse it back. Surely the Council's intention is to make Hereford so bad for congestion that the Council can try and justify to spending millions on new roads as a solution to the problem. Wait until they start on the new link road in Hereford and put up yet another set of traffic lights on Edgar St. I think this new link road is supposed to have 4 sets of traffic lights at least. I often wonder now if Hereford City Centre now has more traffic lights than trees!

The literature on the transport by the Thompson people states that the Western Relief Road will have shared wide footpaths and cycle ways. The display boards shown at the event can be seen here http://jtp.co.uk/public/uploads/pdfs/land_at_three_elms_exhibition_boards.pdf . This is a bit different from the Southern Link Road which has no footpaths or cycleways along its length. The Rotherwas access road has no footpaths or cycleways along it, despite it being a relatively new road. I dont understand why the Council dont want walking and cycling in that area as there is a great national cycle trail which goes along the Great Western Way and out beyond Grafton - great place to take the kids for a bike ride away from the cars and build their confidence on a Bank Holiday weekend! At Three Elms the access to the development is to be in 3 places - Kings Acre Road, 3 Elms Road and off the Roman Road via T junctions and makes no mention of access from the Relief Road. At the planning event we were told that as the "relief road" is supposed to be a major route it cant be a housing estate road as there would be too many junctions in and out of the housing.

I went yesterday evening and it seems that the Western relief road could be a big problem for this development as the Council will need lots of the developers money. The number of houses to be built is apparently a minimum of 1,000 and yes quite a bit is in a flood risk area. I am going again today to see if the planning debate will listen to what local people have to say - I would love to see some good quality, low energy homes for young people/families mixed with good homes/accommodation for older people. If this can be done elsewhere why not here? If we don't try we will just keep getting rabbit hutch accommodation of low quality that is likely to come with a ground floor swimming pool in wet weather! The old railway line runs through the site and this could be a great cycle route/footpath - years ago the line used to run all the way out to Moorhampton and beyond, a lovely area of the County, especially in blossom time!

I think this organised meeting would be a really good idea. Surely as well as trams the "Switch the lights" off campaign could be highlighted as this has got to cost loads less than all the new roads in Hereford! Why cant this be tried if just for a couple of months?!!

From the map kindly provided by megilleland does this mean that the Church Commissioners or their planners decide the route of the Western Relief Road? They seem to have decided which homes are to be demolished on Kings Acre road but I expect like Jean Harris the owners might know nothing about this poor souls!

I am surprised it is a public event held in a secondary school. Can people just walk in as I thought schools didn't allow this sort of thing? I don't know why there needs to be lots of cars and car parking as this site is so flat (because it is a flood plain?) that a lot of children and people in the area walk and cycle. However, isn't this site smack in the middle of the Western Relief Road corridor?

Amanda sorry but I dont understand your comments about the road to the East. I thought that Herefordshire Council are doing the Southern Link road as part 1 of the "Western" bypass. There are no Council plans for an Eastern route even though I understand that Jesse Norman would like any bypass to go East to connect with Worcester and the West Midlands where alot of the engineering businesses are focussed. Are you in favour of the Western route? I don't want any road just decent bus services.

Wow Cloudberry I hadn't read the documents - is this really Herefordshire Council? Who wrote "Openness: being open, transparent and accountable"? Has anyone been held accountable for the death of that poor woman at Dormington as she couldnt be seen for the height of the grass? Jean Harris must like the other sentence "Environment: protecting and promoting our outstanding natural environment and heritage for the benefit of all " If I had been drinking it might make more sense but cold sober I wonder if I have slipped into some parallel universe!

Cant believe the outcome. As has already been said, the situation this administration has inherited from themselves is a real mess with owing so much money and more cuts to come from the new Government. After Jeans letter just a day before the election I had a little look at the Council website to see if any more "bad news" was being buried when we are all watching the election results and I see that a meeting was held about the Council Constitution just today http://councillors.herefordshire.gov.uk/mgWhatsNew.aspx?bcr=1 . (Have I done this link thing correctly? ) . Amazing that a meeting could be held when election results were being read out, who is really in charge? I thought that the Council had agreed to review the Cabinet system because of the lack of transparency? Are we still stuck with this system?

I cant believe such an application has been made just one day before the elections. I thought that the Southern Link Road was part of a whole transport package including improved cycle routes. Am I missing this somewhere or is it just another road application?

Talking about bakeries I found out this weekend that the Cafe@All Saints in Hereford bake fresh bread every day for sale to the public. Unlike the supermarket "fresh" bread where the dough can be 3 months old before it goes in the oven, the Cafe makes fresh dough and bakes early in the morning every day. I would rather buy locally a small amount of fresh good bread when I can afford it than eat alot of that pappy stuff that sometimes goes by the name of bread. Apparently the Cafe were making their own sourdough bread but there weren't enough buyers to make it worthwhile and so this line has stopped. To me these local cafes and shops are much more interesting and offer better products than the large chain restaurants in the OLM. Cant understand why the OLM shopping centre is facing north which makes it freezing cold. I thought the frontages would be on the south side - the sunny side of the street! All a bit back to front to my simple mind.

I think Amanda has a fair point about improving and providing safe routes to school. The roads have very little congestion in the school holidays. When you see the lack of capacity in our hospitals and GPs if we can make young people healthier by walking or cycling safely every day surely that makes more sense than road building. Greenknight can stay in his vehicle but those who want to cycle or walk can do and do it safely. If people walk or cycle or have good public transport rather than use cars, it means that local people save considerable money on the cost of running a car and this is then spent locally.

From all the comments from people who know the routes in this area are making, perhaps the politicians who proposed this road are making up the reasons to justify this road AFTER they have proposed it. The road is not the solution to a problem, the politicians are making problems to justify their pet project.

I heard that a couple of the farms along the route are small holdings owned by Herefordshire Council. Surely if they build the road they will just sell the land for new houses to pay off the loan they are going to need to pay for the road? All the new houses will create more traffic as wont these people work and shop in Hereford? I thought I read somewhere else on Hfd Voice that in the run up to the election that there is a "purdah" period so how can the Council submit a planning application for a road that so many people don't want their hard earned taxpayers money wasted on?

Glenda Powell kindly mentions this "purdah" period but Herefordshire Council are still running a consultation on changes they have made to the Local Plan for Herefordshire. I heard that the changes to the plan mean that some villages could end up with over 60% increase in housing http://www.hereforhereford.co.uk/2015/04/rural-housing-requirements-changed-by-herefordshire-council/ . I thought this plan belonged mainly to the Conservative councillors and so the Cabinet members must have agreed all this housing for rural areas. I wonder how this might affect some of the rural ward elections?

Was I the only person this week who noticed that with schools off the roads at peak time were deserted? Someone told me a while ago that over 50% of traffic in Hereford is school traffic. For the £20million+ that Herefordshire Council are looking to spend on the Southern Link Road could they not spend it on Safer Routes to School so everyone in Hereford could benefit. This is a Sustrans project and aims to get more children (and parents) active and out of cars http://www.sustrans.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/srs_safe_routes_fs01.pdf and benefits everyone's health. Surely this would give better value for money for all the Herefordshire taxpayers than what seems to me a pointless road that doesn't help anyone in Hereford?

This Link Road wont improve congestion on the A49 as it is going to create yet another set of traffic lights on Edgar Street where the current petrol station is (by CRW Carpets) even though this junction is just a few metres away from a roundabout. I heard about yet another junction on the A49 at a public meeting, where Jonathan Bretherton of Hereford Futures confirmed this would be a new traffic light junction. In case Hereford doesn't have enough traffic lights the new link road will have 3-4 sets of traffic lights along it length. I think Hereford is going for a world record on traffic lights/KM of roads in any city centre. It is perhaps because with traffic lights you get waiting traffic and stop/starts which will nicely increase the air pollution for the existing and new residents in the Edgar Street area. Perhaps the Council want to quietly kill off people who complained about the loss of trees on Edgar Street?

Surely if the Councillors don't have all the facts then the Chief Executive is failing in ensuring staff provide sound and factual reports for Council decision making. I must admit many of the Council reports are overlong and run to hundreds of pages, not the sort of reports which are well summarised like you get in most good businesses and organisations. Could this be why the Chief Executive doesn't want Councillors to say anything about this issue because he is the one who failed in ensuring that his staff reported this in the main report to Cabinet?

The littering is bad in the City but also all along our country lanes. My family do a regular litter pick and as has been said, it is usually one type of can or fast food packaging, so is most probably the same person week after week.We often find fresh rubbish the same brand just after we do our litter pick which is really annoying. However, as we live in the countryside no one will ever get stopped for this fly tipping. The worst though is people who pick up their dog poo in a plastic bag and then hang it on the hedgerow!! Can anyone explain the purpose of this? Usually we collect an entire black plastic bag of rubbish and this can be even when it doesn't look like there is a huge amount of litter. Amazing how it all adds up. I think too many people no longer value our lovely City and Countryside, which is really sad as we are very lucky to live in an area with some great places to go to and it can be an inexpensive day out if you walk or cycle and take a pack lunch (and bring your rubbish home with you!).

There was alot of debate at the hearing today, but all the developers I heard speak are going to submit their planning applications for houses on the "strategic sites" in next couple of months and not wait for something called the "Hereford Area Plan" . Herefordshire Council haven't yet decided what the Hereford Area is and werent going to make a decision until the summer! Apparently it could or could not include all the rural areas around Hereford which is odd as I thought this was all open countryside. Well perhaps it wont be after all the planning applications come in the next few months for a couple of thousand houses. I heard someone say we had paid £5.5million for Herefordshire Council to produce this big document/Local Plan and yet apparently the map of Hereford City Centre in it still showed the old Livestock Market!!! For all the planners in Herefordshire Council the street map around the old Livestock market is an historic document not a forward plan for the next 20 years. The Planning Inspector has asked Herefordshire Council to go away and do some homework and rewrite alot of the plan. They have also been asked to include the Hereford United Football club, which the Council had completely omitted to mention anywhere in any of the "policies" apparently.

I see that tomorrow the plans for Hereford for the next 20 years are being debated at Hedley Lodge, Belmont from 10am. I have been told member of the public can go and listen. Someone told me that there have been some really good questions put by the local residents at the tbale allowed to speak at this "Examination in Public", but a lot of "suits" are also there from the development companies like Gladmans, Bovis Homes, etc.

Where is all the money coming from for all these new roads? I see every Herefordshire household is currently paying on average over £200 p.a. just in interest and debt repayments on current council borrowings. They are not going to borrow more money for more roads surely? When is someone going to do something about making Hereford Hospital bigger? I see that the Hereford Times report said that this would cost £40million to bring it up to capacity.