KENNINGTON residents hope a five-month road closure will put the brakes on drivers using their village as a rat-run.

The railway bridge carrying the old Abingdon Road over the Oxford-Didcot main line will be shut from this November until March next year while the existing bridge is demolished and a replacement is built.

The work is part of a £71m Network Rail project to allow larger shipping containers to be transported on standard railway wagons – which should taken an estimated 50,000 lorry journeys a year off the A34 and M40 through Oxfordshire.

Kennington residents have welcomed the news, not just because it will improve the railway or cut carbon emissions, but because it will stop motorists using the village roads as a rush-hour rat-run.

Village warden Alan Pope said drivers used the route to get into Oxford and avoid congestion on the Southern Bypass.

He said: “I think this will more than likely reduce the traffic in the morning rush-hour. You can have a job to cross the road sometimes between 7am and 9am.

“Since they built all the houses in north Abingdon they come this way so they can have a look at the traffic on the ring road and then decide which way to go to work.”

Kennington Parish Council chairman Peter Biggs said the benefits of the closure would outweigh any short-term problems it would cause villagers.

He added: “There might be fewer problems, because the people who use our village as a rat-run won’t be able to.

“It will be interesting to see the figures. At the moment they come from north Abingdon and beyond.”

Network Rail said the bridge needed to be replaced to increase headroom underneath to allow the passage of ‘high-cube’ containers on trains between Southampton docks and the West Midlands.

At present the containers can only be carried under the bridge on special low-floor wagons, which have a reduced carrying capacity.

The existing brick structure will be demolished over the Christmas holiday, when trains are suspended for two days, to minimise disruption.

Network Rail’s western route director Chris Rayner said: “Britain relies on rail freight to get food on to supermarket shelves, consumer goods into our shops, coal to our power stations and raw materials to manufacturing businesses.

“Rail freight directly contributes £870m to the economy, takes tens of thousands of vehicles off the road to reduce congestion and produces 76 per cent less carbon dioxide than road freight.

“Schemes such as the upgrade of the railway between Southampton and the West Midlands are vital for these benefits to be achieved now and into the future.”

He added: “We thank the people of Oxford and Kennington for their patience and co-operation while we carry out this important work.”

Network Rail completed a similar bridge replacement project at South Moreton, near Didcot, in March.