THE Hereford Times printed an anonymous letter on Page 40 of its Christmas edition.

The anonymous author will have you believe increasing road capacity will reduce city congestion, despite the 26 per cent increase in housing developments.

This is incorrect because more than 85 per cent of traffic is local and the bypass could attract three times more volume on the A49.

Recent studies showed increasing road capacity attracts more traffic and most bypasses fail to reduce congestion.

The county council is clearly driven by the lobby of transport and road building interests, not the public interests. The proposed bypass will not work for Hereford or Herefordshire.

The second misleading opinion expressed in the letter is that a bypass is the only solution to traffic congestion. It clearly isn’t. Many cities across the world are working to reduce road congestion by introducing modern infrastructure that is non-polluting.

The third misleading opinion which highlights this letter as pure propaganda is the insistence that Government cannot afford to build pollution-free transport infrastructure when it can afford to build roads at the expense of the police services, social care, social housing, public transport, education and public health.

Don’t believe this propaganda that states we only seek to protect the beautiful countryside around Hereford.

Building bigger roads will attract more traffic increasing pollution and increasing healthcare costs.

All of this is affordable under current guidelines because local government can ignore the timebomb of rising health costs from road pollution, even in the backyard of the minister for roads.

EMIL MORFETT

Hereford