The chair of the committee, Cllr O’Driscoll introduced the committee’s work on the assessment criteria for Hereford Western Bypass Phase 1, noting that the committee benefited from input from an independent transport planning expert who acted as a “critical friend”. Following discussion, the committee agreed four recommendations:

·       First, the committee recommended moving away from simple pass/fail judgments to a scored (graded) approach, so decision-makers get more nuance and detail rather than a tick-box outcome. This would provide greater granularity across a wide set of factors including traffic and safety outcomes, land acquisition, carbon reduction, woodland mitigation, biodiversity net gain, construction cost, social value, affordability, and value for money. The criteria were also to be reorganised around the “five case” model for the final report.

·       Second, the committee asked for the social value criteria to be broadened so it better captures how impacts are distributed across people and communities in Herefordshire.

·       Third and fourth, it called for clearer reporting of project risks, assumptions and uncertainties, and for the inclusion of high/medium/low growth scenarios (including the risks associated with each), reflecting current economic uncertainty.

The chair of scrutiny reported that all four recommendations had been accepted.   The committee’s next step is to shape the questions for the June scrutiny session on the pre-business case, with the aim of ensuring Cabinet has sufficient information to make an informed decision.