RESIDENTS living near to the M40 are continuing a campaign drive for £15m scheme to make the motorway quieter.

M40 Chiltern Environmental Group has been pushing for the Highways Agency to put up sound barriers and lay a quieter road surface since 2004.

Member Sylvia Chadwick said: “It is like living next to an express train that never stops.”

The group says communities living between junctions 6 and 8 have been troubled by noise since the route was extended to Birmingham in 1990.

This includes Aston Rowant, Great Milton, Lewknor, Little Milton, Tetsworth, and Tiddington.

Dorothy Brown, South Oxfordshire district councillor for Aston Rowant, said she supported the group and wanted to help “alleviate the noise”.

She added: “It is noisy living by a motorway.”

Henley MP John Howell is the guest speaker at the group’s annual general meeting on November 25 at Lewknor Village Hall at 7.30pm.

He said: “It is a problem that affects villages in my constituency.

“The group has always put forward a reasonable case and has been professional in the way it has approached this. I’ve been happy to support them.”

The motorway was built in 1967.

Highways Agency spokesman James Wright said: “More than two thirds of the M40 between junctions 3 and 8 now has a low noise road surface, and we will continue to install low noise surfacing when the existing road surface requires replacement.”

For more details visit m40-chilterns.org.uk