Hereford Bypass: Contract Vote Off, Paths Shut 14 Sept

Herefordshire Council’s Cabinet was due to meet on Thursday 10 September to decide whether to award the construction contract for Phase One of the Hereford bypass. That meeting has been cancelled. The council’s own calendar now lists it as “10 Sep 2026 2.30 pm - CANCELLED”, with no documents published for it.

The decision has not simply moved. It has changed shape. The entry on the council’s register of forthcoming decisions is still called “Hereford Bypass Phase One, Assessment Report”, but what it asks Cabinet to do is different, and the date is different.

What the register said, and what it says now

When we reported on this decision on 25 August, the register described the purpose in these words:

To seek approval from Cabinet to award the construction contract to the preferred bidder and authorise spending against the capital budget to construct Phase One of the Hereford Bypass.

That wording is preserved in the Internet Archive’s copy of the entry from 14 June 2026, which also records the notice as first published on 29 May 2026 and the decision as due on 10 September 2026.

The same entry today reads:

Bypass update and next actions

Three other things on it have changed:

• The notice of proposed decision is now dated 25 August 2026, not 29 May.
• The decision is now due on 24 September 2026, not 10 September.
• It is being taken under the general exception procedure, which the council uses when it cannot give the usual 28 clear days’ notice of a key decision.

The reason the council gives for that urgency is the most revealing line in the document:

It is necessary to take this decision urgently due to the need to undertake further design and cost planning work under the Pre Construction Services Agreement (PCSA) before we are in position to let a construction contract.

In other words, the council says it is not yet in a position to award the contract. We checked the whole of the council’s forthcoming decisions register on 8 September. The bypass appears once. There is no separate decision listed anywhere on it to award a construction contract, on any date.

The statutory notice published on 25 August (PDF) still gives the decision date as “Thursday, 10 September 2026”. The register has since moved it to the 24th. The 24 September Cabinet agenda has not been published; the council says agendas appear in the week before the meeting, and the meeting will be streamed on the council’s YouTube channel.

None of this changes the scheme’s published cost. The Full Business Case, released on 4 August, puts Phase One at £44,721,000 against a £45.3m budget. We went through that document in full when it came out.

Four footpaths close on 14 September

While the Cabinet decision has moved back, work on the ground has moved forward.

On 3 September the council advertised four separate notices of intention to close public footpaths, three of which say in terms that the closure “is required to enable construction of the Hereford Bypass”. All four come into force on 14 September 2026 and last up to six months, or until the works finish, whichever is earlier. The Secretary of State can extend them.

Each notice carries the same blunt sentence: “There is no alternative route.”

Measured between the grid references the notices give, those four sections lie in a line running roughly three kilometres west to east, from Clehonger through Haywood to Grafton, on the south western side of the city. That is the corridor of Phase One, which the council describes as “connecting the A465 to the A49 and directly serving the Rotherwas employment area”.

Queries about the closures go to prow@herefordshire.gov.uk. The council says a copy of each order and its plan can be seen on its website.

Separately, the council certified on 25 August that a permanent diversion of part of Footpath HO1 at Holmer and Shelwick, made under section 257 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, had come into force. That order dates from 2025 and is not part of the bypass notices above.

The December start date has not been withdrawn

The council’s own bypass page still says Phase One has planning permission and that “construction is scheduled to begin in December 2026”. The Back the Bypass section of the same site repeats it: “Start on site scheduled for December 2026”, against a capital allocation of £45 million.

So the published position is that the paths close in September, the contract is not yet ready to be let, and the diggers are still expected in December. Whether those three things can all hold is the question the 24 September report will have to answer.

What it means for you

• If you walk any of those four paths, plan for them being gone from Monday 14 September. The notices say there is no alternative route on any of them. This is a rural corridor between Clehonger, Haywood and Grafton, not a city pavement, so a diversion is not simply the next street along.
• Six months is the maximum, not the plan. Each order lasts “for a period not exceeding six months” or until the works are done, whichever comes first, and the council can end one early.
• If you want to hear the decision, it is on 24 September, not 10 September. Cabinet meets at 2.30pm at Plough Lane Offices and the meeting is streamed live. The agenda is due in the week beforehand.
• The contract has not been awarded, and no date is set for awarding it. Nothing on the council’s forthcoming decisions register commits it to a month.
• Nothing here changes the road network yet. For what is actually shut on Hereford’s roads this month, see our Hereford roadworks and travel page, which covers the Belmont Road night closures from 14 September and the College Road footbridge.

We asked nothing of the council for this article and quoted nothing that is not on the public record. If the position changes before 24 September we will update this page and say what changed.

Sources

• Herefordshire Council, forthcoming decision: Hereford Bypass Phase One, Assessment Report, read 8 September 2026, for the current purpose (“Bypass update and next actions”), the 25 August notice date, the 24 September decision date and the urgency wording.
• Internet Archive capture of the same entry, 14 June 2026, for the earlier purpose, the 29 May notice date and the 10 September decision date.
• Herefordshire Council, statutory notice under Regulation 10, general exception (PDF), published 25 August 2026.
• Herefordshire Council, Cabinet meetings list, for “10 Sep 2026 2.30 pm - CANCELLED”, and the 10 September meeting page and 24 September meeting page.
• Herefordshire Council, forthcoming decisions register, read 8 September 2026, checked for any separate contract award decision.
• Herefordshire Council notices of intention, advertised 3 September 2026, for the four footpath closures: Footpath CH9, Clehonger, Footpath HA3, Haywood, Footpath HA7, Haywood and Footpath GF3, Grafton.
• Herefordshire Council, public footpath diversion order certificate, Footpath HO1 (part), Holmer and Shelwick, in force 25 August 2026.
• Herefordshire Council, Hereford Bypass and Back the Bypass, for the Phase One description, the December 2026 start on site and the £45m allocation.