LEOMINSTER’S bold bid for an east-west bypass won’t get ahead of the Hereford ‘distributor road’ as a regional priority.

Herefordshire Council leader Councillor Roger Phillips told the Hereford Times this week that the £130 million Hereford project – a bypass by any other name – was the only roadbuilding bid in the county for which the Government was actively thinking about funding.

Herefordshire Council would, said Coun Phillips, fund research into the potential of the £9 million Leominster project through the Local Development Framework process. Beyond that, only developer contributions could drive the east-west bypass forward at this stage, he said.

His statement comes as Herefordshire Council moves to counter any claims made on behalf of the Leominster bid for a share of the New Growth Point cash coming Hereford’s way from Whitehall.

That money, said Coun Phillips, would be spent on Hereford, with projects for the market towns largely dictated by the number of new homes they can take up to 2026.

“Those homes will obviously need the infrastructure to support them, but right now the Hereford project is the only regional priority,” said Coun Phillips.

Leominster Town Council – which has battled for the east-west route from the off – has a letter from Ian Austin MP, Minister for the West Midlands, that deputy mayor Richard Westwood says specifically cites the New Growth Point money as helping to “audit and validate” a study into the project. A reference taken by the town council as extremely good news, said Coun Westwood.

“Once the study is produced, it will be important to make sure the town gets the full benefit from this badly needed bypass,” he said.

Leominster town councillors met the minister in February to hear that the bypass bid couldn’t count on government money because it didn’t meet funding criteria.

But the minister was impressed enough to say that funding for a feasibility study might be forthcoming through “associated agencies”.

As pitched, the Leominster bypass would link the three to four miles between the A44 Monkland Road and the B4361 Hereford Road and go on to the town’s enterprise park, Hereford, Worcester, and the national highway network.

The Hereford bypass, costing about £130 million, would probably cross the Wye from the Rotherwas access road.

The bid is now with Whitehall having been listed by the West Midlands Regional Assembly as a priority project, with the Government asked to cover at least half the cost.