OXFORDSHIRE County Council should take control of the A34 and its budget to tackle major congestion problems, a senior councillor has said.

Council leader Ian Hudspeth wants the Highways Agency to let the authority take control of the road.

The move would enable the council – responsible for most county roads – to fight congestion and win investment, he said.

Conservative Mr Hudspeth added: “My ambition is to make a bid so we can take control of it and run it from junction nine right down to Ilsley.

“We would be able to look at it from a local and national point of view, and we could put pressure on ministers to give us funding for things like hard shoulders and to look at blackspots.

“One of the biggest problems is that it’s a two-lane road with no hard shoulder, and although we have clever diversion routes, if you take 79,000 vehicles and put them on to already congested roads it causes problems.

“If we take control I will be banging on ministers’ doors for additional funding.”

He said the council could only afford to take it on if the current budget came with it.

He said: “It would have its advantages in terms of gritting routes and litter collection.”

Mr Hudspeth said the A34 was the focus of the county’s City Deal bid, set up by Government to give councils more power to look for investment.

Meanwhile, Oxfordshire MPs Andrew Smith and John Howell have backed fellow MP Nicola Blackwood’s call for action to improve the A34.

In yesterday’s Oxford Mail, Oxford West and Abingdon MP Ms Blackwood said hard shoulders, bigger junctions and variable speed limits should be introduced.

She spoke after it was revealed that more than 1,000 collisions had taken place on the road in Oxfordshire in the past 10 years.

Oxford East MP Mr Smith said: “I believe there's a really pressing need for improvements.

“This needs action and investment by the Government, which must recognise that as well as the growth in local usage, it has become a major national artery, linking Southampton to the Midlands and the North.

“A closer look must be taken at the costs and benefits of measures like widening where appropriate and necessary, improvements to junctions, variable speed limits to better manage congestion, and measures to reduce surface noise, which blights many communities.

“A concerted strategy is also needed to get more of the lorry traffic off the road and on to rail, as BMW has done with exported Minis.

“I would want to see a full consultation so that the measures command as much of a consensus as you can ever get on this sort of investment.”

Dr Howell, MP for Henley, added: “The A34 is probably the biggest inhibitor to growth in the county and I am glad that several ministers have recently come to take a look at.

“It is a problem which badly needs fixing and, if the City Deal means anything, it surely means concentrating on this as a problem.

“I don’t know what the solution is but I do know it is time it was properly addressed.”

Wantage MP Ed Vaizey said: “We have all, I am sure, been stuck in traffic there at busy times or, unfortunately, after an accident. There have been improvements, particularly at the M4, and also by restricting overtaking by lorries.

“Nicola Blackwood has worked tirelessly to bring to ministers’ attention the need to fund improvements.

“Money is tight, and there are competing projects, but I will continue to work with her. The City Deal, and devolved funding, will help, particularly with small but important junction improvements, especially at Harwell, but we need to look long-term as the county continues to thrive economically.”

Taxi driver Colin Dobson, 46, welcomed the calls for action.

He said: “Having lived in Oxford all my life and spending most of my time on the roads I know plenty of alternatives, so the moment it starts to fill up with traffic I take a different route.

“But I do feel sorry for the people who have to use it every day. It’s obviously a pretty bad road.”

Stuart Adams, a manager at Bicester haulage firm DA Clayton, said: “The A34 is a big artery for our delivery network so freight comes to our distribution centre in Bicester for the whole of Oxfordshire.

“That’s our primary route to get up and down and any deliveries that are delayed are going to cause us problems and penalties, either for late or non-delivery.”

Another problem is regulations for drivers which restrict their hours.

Mr Adams said: “We can get incidents where a guy has run out of hours and we’ll have to make arrangements to pick him up and swap with another driver and bring him back.”

Mr Adams believed road improvements in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire making the link to the A34 easier means more vehicles were using the route.

He said it was difficult to suggest how the A34 could be improved as hotspots like Botley were built-up areas.

Jack Godfrey, a director at Faringdon haulage firm J Godfrey & Son, said each time a lorry was held up it cost about £100 and hour and this happened five or six times a week.

He said: “I try to avoid it on Fridays. It’s just a case of the volume of traffic on there.

“It’s definitely northbound that is worse – it needs a third lane from Botley up.

“It is always crammed from the (M40) motorway back to Botley.”

Gavin Spencer, of Oxfordshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “Businesses and employees often find a way around known troublespots. But the chamber will lobby for infrastructure improvements and other measures in the future.”