A new rail link between Oxford and Cambridge has moved a step closer after infrastructure tsar Lord Adonis said it would be his next priority.

George Osborne wrote to Lord Adonis after the budget on Wednesday to set out his support for boosting transport links between the cities.

Today Lord Adonis told The Times he was to begin work on a plan for the Oxford to Cambridge corridor, to be published in the autumn.

The peer, who chairs the National Infrastructure Commission, said it would benefit Oxford, Cambridge and towns along the route such as Bicester and Milton Keynes.

He told The Times: "The 67 miles between Oxford and Cambridge could be England's Silicon Valley, but it lacks the transport and housing infrasturcture needed, despite its world-class universities and some individually thriving towns and cities.

"The region has huge potential. The towns and cities between and around Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge could become so much more than the sum of their parts- a high-skilled, high-employment, high-infrastructure cluster, helping to fire the national economy by leading the world in cutting edge technology and jobs."

Silicon Valley is the name given to a section of California in the United States where many large technological companies are based.

In October Highways England appointed researchers to explore options to improve connectivity between Oxford and Cambridge.

It followed a report in September 2014 which suggested reopening the Varsity Line, a railway line which ran between the cities but was closed in the 1960s.

The National Infrastructure Commission is to look into what other potential sites for housing and industrial estates could be identified along the route.