No, Phil Collins (Letters, January 2), the answer to the loss of your precious 40 minutes is not to cover more swathes of Herefordshire’s most beautiful countryside and prime agricultural land with Tarmac.

We are living in a different world of a climate emergency, catastrophic depletion of nature and increasing poor health from a sedentary lifestyle.

Use of the private car now needs to be the last resort. How much better it would be for you to campaign for a public transport and active travel system which would enable you to get on a bus or train at Pontrilas and move around in Hereford by bus, tram or bicycle on roads largely clear of private cars.

This is not a fantasy. There are plenty of examples in other parts of the world. We just need the political will, and electing the current council was the first step.

A small minority of the traffic in Hereford is passing through. A bypass would only suck in more traffic, not least from the thousands of new houses which are the real reason for the previous council’s plan to build it.

Getting the commuters, shoppers and schoolchildren out of their cars would make a far greater difference to the congestion as well as benefitting their physical and mental health.

Let Herefordshire be the county that leads the way with a new vision for transport.

Jim Hardy
Hereford