An environmental group has asked Oxfordshire County Council to freeze a major road project over concerns it will be “financially risky and climate-wrecking.”

Oxford Friends of Earth has called for an urgent review to the HIF1 road scheme – which is currently set to cost £296 million.

It involves the construction of nine miles of major road from the A34 near Didcot, including a new River Thames crossing near Abingdon, to Nuneham Courtenay on the Oxford-Henley road.

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The road is intended to introduce sustainable travel options and improve air quality as well as reduce congestion and noise levels.

However, Chris Church of the volunteer group said it was shaping up to be a “financial and environmental disaster for Oxfordshire.”

He said: “The new road would merely shift congestion from one site to another and lead to increased traffic.

“It would slice through our countryside and cover an area the size of 300 football pitches in tarmac and concrete.

“Building this road would put a further 154,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere plus 15,000 tonnes annually from extra traffic at a time when the county is trying reduce emissions.”

“The county council must freeze the HIF1 scheme now and reassess all its road-building plans to ensure they are compatible with their agreed policies.”

Oxford Friends of Earth also criticised how the road has been funded.

The county council will pay £30m from its budget – with £240m provided by the government, £21.8m coming from Homes England, and £10m from Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership.

The council said the investment would create around 880,000sq feet of warehouse and office space and 20,000 new jobs.

It is also hoped it will help provide more than 11,000 new homes – which would include approximately 4,200 affordable homes.

A spokeswoman said the scheme would encourage a “modal shift” towards sustainable forms of transport like walking and cycling.

She said: “The Didcot and surrounding areas major infrastructure scheme project will provide more sustainable travel options in and around Didcot, as well as reducing a legacy of congestion in the surrounding villages and improving air quality and noise levels.

“It will also provide vital transport infrastructure to reduce congestion and enable more reliable journey times, improve pedestrian and cycling connectivity, and support allocated housing and employment sites.

“The existing infrastructure in the Didcot area is inadequate and the high traffic levels could not be reduced without this scheme.

“The project has the support of Didcot Town Council and the district councils and will provide 19.2 km of high-quality walking and cycling infrastructure, opportunities for more direct, faster, and more reliable bus routes and connect employment sites with Didcot, surrounding villages and existing walking and cycling routes.”