Drivers travelling on the gridlocked Oxfordshire stretch of the A34 will have to stomach heavy delays for the next decade at least.

The jack-knifed lorry which caused huge jams on April 6 That is the grim prophecy from county council transport chief David Robertson and the Highways Agency, who said no plans exist to improve, widen or do anything with the road in the foreseeable future.

A jacknifed lorry, on the northbound carriageway near the Peartree interchange, caused chaos in the morning rush hour.

At the height of the delays, traffic queued for five miles on the northbound carriageway.

Some commuters reported delays of more than an hour. The incident reignited debate about what could be done to improve the road, fuelled last December by a crash involving two lorries which closed the southbound carriageway between the Peartree and Botley interchanges for 18 hours.

This week Oxfordshire's Conservatives launched their transport manifesto, aimed at showing that the car is not "the spawn of the devil".

But while they plan to waive on-street car parking charges in Oxford after 6pm and press on with improvements to the A40 -- they cannot do anything with the A34.

Mr Robertson, a county council member, said: "In some ways we were fortunate yesterday because it was the school holidays and it could have been even worse.

"This is a problem because all the roads in Oxfordshire are at capacity or over-capacity. I'm very disappointed the Government has said nothing can be done before 2016."

A spokesman for the Highways Agency said: "Over the past two years the Highways Agency has been working on a Route Management Strategy (RMS) for the A34 between junction 9 of the M3 and junction 9 of M40, at Wendlebury.

"This has looked at the problems and issues of the route and has come up with various options. RMSs do not generally look at large-scale schemes and therefore the A34 RMS does not propose any widening."

*Motorists also faced delays yesterday as work to improve the safety of Cowley Road in east Oxford continued. The work will last for the next seven months.