DataHoldsTheAnswers

Good news! Inspiring to see doctors and scientists in important elected positions in Poland. I expect that improves policy somewhat. Now that we are out of the EU, I suppose the other 27 club members will get first refusal before we get a look in. Let's hope our corporate friends at AstraZeneca come up with the goods soon on our behalves! #SunlitUplands #NobodyIsTalkingAboutThreateningOurPlaceInTheSingleMarket

GOSH!!! Who'd have thought that public health in this country was so ON IT, that it has seen fit to leak that there *may* be a Covid case in the hospital. At the height of lockdown my attempts to get the Press Office (for so it is called) of the hospital to give information about number of inpatients etc with confirmed Covid were fruitless. "No", they said, "we won't tell you anything useful about cases in the hospital, as that would be a grave transgression of the rules surrrounding complete and utter secrecy. We must keep the public in the dark about the scale of the problem. " Luckily by keeping everything secret and not allowing anyone but the editor of the Hereford Times to be told anything about the situation on the ground, the vast scale of incompetence seen up and down the land in the last 6 months can be kept under wraps. Or at least, that is what they are hoping.

Some facts: The bypass's cost, by the Council's own estimation (ie extremely optimistic) is 200 to 250 million. So the 2 million you want would barely scratch 1% of the total estimated cost. It would build a lot of footpaths though! In the surveying done in 2016 7% of the traffic in Hereford is through traffic on the A49. The other 93% is almost all private motor cars and light vans (amazon delivieries etc). I'm not making this up. These are the numbers that the Council will give you if you ask for them. Everyone who lives in Hereford knows that it is the school run that creates massive congestion. The proposed bypass route doesn't really go very near many schools, and anyway, I wouldn't want my child walking along a 60mph dual carriageway to get to school. I sympathise with the view that 'taking lorries out of Hereford' could be seen to be attractive and potentially to encourage walking and cycling, but the truth is many lorries have to come into Hereford as it is, because they supply shops and restaurants with all their goods. And then there's Rotherwas. It needs lots of HGV movements every day too. So even a bypass wouldn't remove all HGVs from Herefords's roads. The truth is segregated bike lanes, to keep the idiots out of harm's way, would be a great boon for Hereford, and also its schoolchildren. Population in the UK has almost doubled since the War, and space is increasingly at a premium. If you have to drive a huge metal box round wherever you go, well fine, that is your 'right' but expect to pay for it! As we know from the terrible congestion in Hereford, there simply isn't space for everyone to sit in a car, and also get there quickly. Alternatives must be found. There was a recent investigative report (https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/18711629.long-take-cross-city-now/) in the Hereford Times which detailed how the quickest mode of transport from Tescos to the station is, you guessed it, a bike! How extraordinary that a machine with a top speed of 20mph could be faster than a machine with a top speed of over 70mph. Perhaps we could learn something from it. Opinionated feedback from non-experts is always welcome I'm sure in Council offices, but at the end of the day opinions don't change facts. It can't be easy arriving in a town hall where during the previous decade central Gov't has systematically starved it of all resources needed to actually carry out the necessary work to run the services we all need. Rather than constantly criticising the current council, perhaps we Herefordians would do better to consider how perhaps our own voting behaviour has put in place the 2010-2019 Tory austerity government that has undoubtedly wrought so much damage to this nation's once competent public services. Everyone reading this will know a teacher or a nurse or just someone who lost their job in public sector. Deep down we all know what damage has been done, and we hate to face up to admitting how long it may take to repair, especially as we all voted for it!

Such a terrible shame that the seeds of this tragedy were sown some 90 years previously by British foreign policy in the Middle East. That and our seemingly insatiable demand for fossil fuel energy, particularly oil, from the 1920s onwards. A tragedy for all those living in Iraq today, as well as for the innocent New Yorkers. Let's hope as we move forwards into a more independent nation we don't look to exercise military might in order to secure resources that aren't geographically ours, especially since we are making such a stink ourselves about the rights to fish in the waters around these islands and the coastal waters of our continental neighbours.

I am quoting the Hereford Traffic Survey that was undertaken in 2016 by the then Tory roadbuilding administration. The information is all available from John Harrington if you ask him. 1500 HGVs sounds about right. That means ~21500 car journeys on the same day (the 93%), which sounds like a underestimate to me, given that 55000 live in Hereford. You can gripe all you like, but maths doesn't lie (that's the job of statistics in the hands of politicians 😉 ) Anyway, since Beeching killed 2/3 of the railways, how else are shops meant to keep their shelves stocked if there aren't HGVs? What's more is that there's information about where the journeys start and end, and very few Herefordians would save time or money by rerouting their journeys the long way round on a new bypass. If you want to go from Tupsley to Rotherwas would you really go via Holmer to Belmont first?! I can do that journey on the Greenway Bridge in less than ten mins, for zero fuel cost! But then, I try to think independently about what is the best way to do things, rather than follow the crowd.

I think it's a shame. We need to have more spaces for the normalisation of not being reliant on carbon polllution just to go shopping, or indeed, do anything at all. The bike lanes were a positive signal that cycling, walking and not polluting is normal in Hereford. But the NIMBYs have got their way once again. Back in the cars, back to air pollution, back to traffic noise and fatal accidents, and back to me not wanting to spend any time in central Hereford. Oh well. They say progress happens in different place at different rates. I suppose that why Hereford has always been left behind. People here are just that little bit slower... I suppose in ten years' time when the bypass has finally been built and the traffic problems in Hereford are just the same as they are now that the penny will finally drop that the traffic won't disappear, unless the people WHO ARE THEMSELVES THE TRAFFIC decide not to drive everywhere in cars. Difficult concept for some I expect, but whilst there are hapless people in the council to blame, then they will be blamed, no matter what they try to do.

I think you'll find that the mountains of slurry and manure that the poultry produce (poultry manure is by some margin the most phosphate rich muck produced by domesticated animals) in principally Powys, would require a wetland system about three times the size of the Powys to ameliorate! There are over 10 million birds there now with planning permission granted. The manure management plans say a lot will be exported these days. Where to?? Herefordshire...? This is a regulatory failure by both NRW and Powys CC on a scale hitherto thought possible only somewhere in central Africa. It's a crying shame, and the petition is a great start to get the problem sorted out. It will take several years to compensate all the farms that have been perfectly lawfully carrying on polluting with the blessing (ie planning permission) of PCC and the aid and assistance of the supermarket supply chain that pays them (think the likes of Avara, Noble Foods and Cargill etc). Taxpayers will once again have deep pockets to pay for the mess that large scale industrial farming creates. Don't forget the mantra #CheapFood - one of Mr Gove's favourite reasons for Brexit, IIRC. This is a big scandal and is only going to get bigger in the coming months!

Well, the debate rages on! Personally I think the changes are much overdue and certainly needed. Yes I can see the frustration of being stuck in traffic, but as the original poster pointed out, everyone is in their cars during the school rush, and that's why the traffic is so BAD. It certainly isn't the cyclists' fault! They hardly take up any road space at all. I reckon COVID and the resulting change in working practices means that routinely coming to work 15 mins later because of a cycled school run won't actually be a problem for 99% of bosses and employees. Many people have been hoodwinked by the Tory roadbuilding lobby (Chair of Jesse Norman's constituency association runs a road building consultancy!!) but the truth is that only 7% of Hereford's traffic, which is currently through traffic on the A49, would actually use the bypass. 93% of journeys in Hereford start and/or terminate in Hereford centre itself. Such as school run trips (as a good example). The only way to reduce the congestion with that pattern of vehicle and road use is to either (1) build more and wider roads in central Hereford to accommodate all the mothers in SUVs. However, there isn't space for that! OR (2) Get those in cars, who could use an alternative mode of transport, to use that alternative mode. Yes, that means walking to school, cycling to work, taking the bus to the shops, etc. What so many drivers seem to forget at they sit fuming about the traffic is that THEY ARE THE TRAFFIC! Or perhaps, like the police, it's one rule for them, and a different rule for everyone else? Who knows? What is for sure though, is that a bypass, costing at least quarter of a billion taxpayers' quids and taking at least 10 years to plan, consult endlessly on and then build, won't actually solve the problem. It will only divert a tiny fraction of that traffic from Hereford, ie, the through traffic (7%) and those lucky enough to have a commute from, say, Belmont to Holmer, which can't be that many in the grand scheme of things. At least with the cycle lanes they can be built quickly, don't cost much (I think in round 1 of Gov't funded improvements the Council only managed to bid for a paltry 40k), and at the end of the day, if they really don't work, can be removed pretty easily too. Unlike a hulking great dual carriageway across Grade 1 agricultural land. We need to think what the future will look like with more CO2 in the atmosphere and more extreme flooding and climatic events happening. I hope for my children's sake that there are lots of bicycles and bike lanes included in the future vision!