A £12.5m roadwork project across Headington has ‘ignored’ the pleas of Marston residents and will only worsen traffic in the area, councillors have warned.

Oxfordshire County Council’s Access to Headington project will move on to its next phase on January 22 with nine months of roadworks to begin at the entrance to the John Radcliffe Hospital.

The work to improve roads and junctions will be carried out at Headley Way and Cherwell Drive amid warnings from the hospital that motorists should allow two hours to navigate the works and find a parking space.

Speaking ahead of the project launch, the chairman of Old Marston Parish Council said the county council had effectively side-lined his ward.

Duncan Hatfield said: “Traffic is an issue in Marston already, one of the concerns is the impact at Cherwell Drive because the roads have not been maintained and nothing will be done about that.

“There are concerns about how the work could cause more congestion with the traffic lights making the traffic worse and slowing things down.

“It is really difficult to see how it is going to impact the Marston area.

“They want to improve traffic in and out of the Headington area but Marston has a really severe traffic problem and I think they need to really invest in this because we have got lots of people coming in and out already.

“The money needs to be more invested in the Marston area.”

City councillor for the area, Mick Haines, also joined calls for more to be done for his ward and said potholes and parking were some of the biggest issues for residents.

He said: “When Access to Headington starts here its going to be horrible, most of the residents I have spoken to are against it.

“We need to get something sorted out with the state of the roads. The roads in Marston are terrible. It would be much more important to fix that than put in some traffic lights.”

He added that he would call on the county council to do more for his ward.

Contractors Skanska will begin setting up for the roadworks on Tuesday before work starts on January 22.

Oxfordshire County Council was approached for comment.