More than 2,000 residents have signed up for e-mails to help them avoid traffic jams when a £7m road repair scheme begins on the A34 in Oxford.

The Highways Agency announced this summer that from next month, workers will begin repairing the five-mile stretch of the dual carriageway between Oxford's Peartree roundabout and Weston-on-the-Green.

The agency has confirmed that work will begin on August 29.

Residents living in Kidlington and the surrounding area, including Sir Richard Branson, have been campaigning for years for noise reduction measures to the concrete carriageway.

Cosima Duggal, a spokesman for the Highways Agency, said: "Work will start after the Bank Holiday and a large number of residents have already signed up for e-mail updates of the latest situation.

"The service, which provides up-to-date information on times and dates for diversions, has proved very popular."

Businesses are being urged to tell their staff about the e-mail updates, which also warn of lane closures.

In March this year, the agency announced that the £7m programme was being brought forward a year.

Residents living near the road have been warned that most of the work will be carried out at night and that they could face some sleepless nights.

Contraflows and diversions will operate during the resurfacing scheme, expected to be finished by the end of January 2006.

The asphalt surfacing of the Peartree flyover will be resurfaced at a later date.

The A34 opened in 1990 and immediately afterwards residents protested about the noise, later attempting to take their case to the European Parliament but this failed.

Anyone who wants to subscribe to the free e-mail alert service should visit www.highways.gov.uk/A34Oxford

A car careered into a crash barrier and rolled over on the A34 causing a lane to close for an hour yesterday (Friday).

The white Toyota crashed at 12.25pm after hitting the central reservation barrier and ended up on its roof on the southbound stretch of the A34 at Wytham.

Police closed one lane of the ring road for an hour but the motorist escaped uninjured and no ambulance was called.