TWO high profile infrastructure projects should be ditched because they would make climate change targets more difficult to achieve, according to a Green Party councillor.

Dick Wolff will ask Oxford city councillors to back a call to stop the proposed Oxford to Cambridge expressway and any expansion of Oxford Airport.

The expressway has been mooted as costing up to £3.5bn and could be built by 2030.

It received backing from the Government’s National Infrastructure Commission last year, which said the road would be vital in unlocking the economic potential between the UK’s two premier university cities.

But the Green Party’s Rev Wolff will ask for his fellow members to agree that any development in the ‘arc’ between the two cities should be built ‘sustainably’, without the reliance on any further private transport.

The potential development of the airport was reported on in the Oxford Mail last month – but it will need permission to be developed on the Green Belt.

Oxford Aviation Services, which runs the airport, said short-haul flights to Edinburgh, Dublin, Belfast, Amsterdam and Glasgow were viable if expansion is allowed.

A green belt study has already said the airport could be expanded – but Oxford Aviation Services must wait on whether changes in boundaries will be allowed in Cherwell District Council’s second part of its local plan. That will be unveiled this year.

But Rev Wolff’s motion, which will be voted on at a council meeting next Monday, states: “The capacity increases this will deliver, including the encouraging of disproportionately damaging short trips by air, will only lead to a net increase in transport emissions.

“This council has stated its commitment to climate change reduction on several occasions and recognises that all levels of Government must play their part in tackling climate change.”

Outgoing city council leader, Bob Price, said last year he felt it was time Oxford had an airport to match its ‘global significance’.

As reported by the Oxford Mail on Monday, a Government transport minister will visit the city over an MP’s concerns about any possible development in Botley to accommodate the expressway.

Jesse Norman was invited by Layla Moran, the MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, to address residents’ concerns over the new road. He accepted the invitation.

She had claimed ‘hundreds’ of homes could be knocked down to make way for the new road but Highways England insisted no route has been picked yet.

Oxfordshire County Council leader Ian Hudspeth said Ms Moran’s views on what could happen were ‘premature’.

Highways England has yet to confirm which one of three broad paths will be chosen, with the final route to be confirmed later.