Today, 20th May 2026, Cllr Louis Stark wrote to Cllr Philip Price on behalf of the Liberal Democrat group on Herefordshire Council. The text of the open letter is included below.

Dear Philip

At the meeting on the 6th March, full council agreed the Liberal Democrat's motion concerning the re-establishment of the rail link between Hereford, Ross and Gloucester. In doing so council asked for a number of actions to be carried out by the administration over the next 12 months:

1. Enter early discussions with Gloucestershire County Council on the possibility of a joint feasibility study on the reestablishment of the rail link.
2. Write to the Secretary of State for Transport to set out our stall and see the likely support and possibility of funding for a feasibility study.
3. In parallel, test the market for any private finance interest in backing a feasibility study.
4. Engage with relevant partners and the engineering sector to seek specialist expertise for writing and scoping a feasibility study, including costs.
    
   More than two months have passed, and we have not heard anything from you or the administration on your plans for delivering the four actions mentioned above. As a result, we have published, on the Herefordshire Liberal Democrats website, the text of possible Terms of Reference for such a feasibility study. These have been kindly drawn up by an interested party based on their experience on working on a Restoring Your Railway project.
    
   I would be very interested to get your early views and that of the administration on these suggested Terms of Reference and to hear any progress that may have happened in securing funding for the feasibility study over the previous two months.
    
   I look forward to your reply

Cllr Louis Stark

Our news article on this is available.

The Terms of Reference document may be downloaded here.