See below for useful information about the Green and Herefordshire Independent coalition 2019-2023 covering council tax increases, Hereford bypass, potholes, Children's Services, waste collections, our beautiful rivers and the planters on Hereford City Link Road. Want to see more, or are you interested in a topic not covered here yet? Use the contact page to let us know and we'll add the information here. Thank you!
Council tax increases
- We increased council tax for 2023-24 by 4.99%, just like our neighbouring (Conservative-run) administrations in Shropshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, in order to keep vital services running.
- During 2020-2024 council tax in Herefordshire increased by 18%. During 2015-2019, under the previous (Conservative) administration, council tax actually went up by more (19%) despite the fact they didn’t face 1-in-400-year floods, Covid or inflation.
- Our coalition protected the most vulnerable households. We introduced 100% council tax rebate for the most cash-strapped households in 2021 and have continued this since. We also provided a Hardship Fund, with £1.7M in it this year.
- Council tax supports the most vulnerable in our communities, especially elderly people, children and young people who need extra support.
- Every year the council spends over £300 million of revenue (delivering day to day services, like education, social care and bin collection) and £70-100 million of capital spending (on things like infrastructure and new schools).
- When the coalition came to power in 2019 we rapidly put in place new project management systems to avoid the sorts of cost overruns that had happened with previous projects like Blueschool House. We’ve also had to sort out problems such as the previous Conservative administration’s overspend on the City Link Road.
Hereford bypass
Most of the £22 million was wasted before 2019, paying consultants for plans that would have been financially ruinous, environmentally disastrous and totally ineffective in fixing Hereford's congestion. When the coalition came to power in 2019 it became obvious that the Conservatives didn’t have legal agreements in place, nor the funding.
A bypass wouldn't work. Research has shown that only 7% of traffic in Hereford is passing through from one side to out the other (see Hereford Transport Strategy Review for more on this research). The issue is people getting around within Hereford. The coalition administration is shifting this by investing in better buses and more support for walking and cycling, especially through school travel plans.
A bypass would have cost over £200M and taken years to build. The transport strategy review showed that the same congestion reduction could be achieved at one-third the cost by investing in improved public transport and more walking and cycling, so that's what the coalition administration is doing.
Potholes
- We are as frustrated as everyone else that there is not enough funding for road maintenance.
- The reality is that government funding for road maintenance has not matched the need for many years. In their most recent annual assessment, our Highways team estimates that to return Herefordshire's road network to good condition would now cost £315M. This is a reflection of just how much the road budget we receive from central government has been cut over the last 13 years.
- We have a lot of road to deal with - there is over 16 metres of road per person in Herefordshire. In comparison Gloucestershire has only 8m of road per person.
- We need more government funding! Yet the MPs Jesse Norman and Bill Wiggin have repeatedly voted to cut local authority budgets.
Children's Services
There was a lack of grip on Herefordshire's Children's Services for far too long. Our coalition administration has understood the issues and taken the action that was needed many years ago. The Children's Commissioner's report says that the service had been in decline for at least a decade, and recognises that progress is now underway. We increased investment, reduced social worker caseloads, strengthened recruitment, and improved social work practice. We are very pleased that an independent 'Listening to Families' Commission is now established and working with families, and look forward to acting on their recommendations.
Relationships are central to Green values, and strengthening links with all health, police, charity, school and parish partners around the county is a priority for us as councillors. The wellbeing of Herefordshire's children is a matter for the whole community.
Better bins
- The coalition planned for a huge improvement in how our household waste is managed
- Weekly collection of food waste for composting will have huge environmental benefits and make other bins much nicer to deal with
- Weekly collections of recycling or residual bins can be arranged, for example because of nappies or medical waste
- For everyone else, costs will be kept down by collecting less frequently
Restoring our rivers
Our rivers are in a dreadful state. Latest Environment Agency figures show 74% of the phosphate pollution in the Upper Wye is from rural land use. This is a failure of both the Environment Agency and Natural England to either monitor or enforce the Farming Rules for Water. Herefordshire council has done what it can - no industrial agricultural unit has been granted planning permission since 2019 and wetland planting is underway to strip out pollution naturally.
Herefordshire Council requested a Water Protection Zone (WPZ) last year to enable better control of pollution and to support the restoration of the Wye. That was sadly turned down by the Minister. We believe the Environment Agency and Natural England are not fulfilling their statutory duties to protect the river, at least partly because they have been underfunded for a decade. A Water Protection Zone is needed to protect nature and all the economic activity that depends upon it - farming, tourism and construction.
Planters
The improvements along the Hereford City Link Road completed in 2022 completed the over-running and over-spent Conservative-run Hereford City Centre Transport project. That original project was meant to build the road and a transport interchange and improve Commercial Road and walking and cycling links. Sadly when we inherited the project in 2019 only the road had been built and there were various uncompleted Compulsory Purchase Orders along the road that still needed to be dealt with. It took time to sort out that mess.To help complete the project we integrated it with the Hereford City Centre Improvements project.
The project was funded with capital funding from the Local Economic Partnership (LEP) that was specifically allocated to Hereford City; the council was not allowed to spend this money on anything else. Therefore it could not have been spent for example on fixing potholes elsewhere. The only alternative to spending the money as per the original project plan would have been to give it back to central government. As the new city centre planters with benches had proven so popular, the decision was taken to spend the money we had to spend on more planters.
St Owen Street cycle lane
- Originally designed several years ago, funded from the LEP’s Getting Building Fund Grant
- Government guidance on cycle lane design changed in July 2020, so it had to be redesigned
- Redesigned cycle lane was inevitably more expensive due to the new national requirements
- Final design cost more than the £700,000 allocated from the LEP funding (which had to be spent by end March 2023).
- Problem fixed by additionally resurfacing whole of street at the same time, using Local Transport Plan money.
- Cyclists are now able to safely access the city from the eastern side, and drivers have a far better road surface.
Maylords shopping centre
In 2020 the previous owners of the Maylords shopping centre were threatening to sell it off to a private developer who might not have had the best interests of Herefordshire at heart. The council recognised the opportunity to regenerate Maylords and bought it for £4.5 million. We made a commitment to invest in it to regenerate the area and to generate social value. And we’ve delivered on this promise - the shops are now buzzing, and we’ve raised £3 million from the Towns Fund to create a new library and learning centre in part of Maylords. We’ve put our social value principles into practice by offering discounted rents for social enterprises and creating opportunities for local start-up businesses. The purchase of Maylords is a great example of the council taking a long-term strategic view of what’s good for the city and the county. The revenue from rents covers the running costs and we’ve protected this part of the city from speculative development. The money used to buy Maylords was capital funding from the Development and Regeneration Fund - it could not have been used for pothole-fixing.
Care and competence
The coalition left the council absolutely in the black, with reserves of about £77 million, and general reserves of twice the required level.
Any accusation otherwise is completely untrue.
All the examples above show that the coalition worked with care and competence.
For more information on all the issues raised above including links to all sources of information, please see our full rebuttal of the Conservative Party's 'Herefordshire Champion' here.
