CONGESTION meant motorists were forced to drive at an average speed of 32mph on the county's A roads last year, new figures have revealed.

The annual release of travel time measures by the Department for Transport showed no improvement in average speeds in Oxfordshire, with drivers barely managing to achieve half the usual speed limit.

Average speeds on A roads managed by the county council were 32.1mph and 32.7mph in 2015 and 2016 respectively and remained at 32.1mph last year.

The figures also showed that drivers will be delayed by 30.3 seconds for every mile travelled on the same roads.

This means that anyone commuting for five miles will face an additional two and half minutes for every journey, or 25 minutes in total across a working week.

Those travelling 20 miles, for example from Burford to Oxford, will face ten minutes worth of delays on average for every journey.

Delays have increased by 2.3 per cent - or 0.7 seconds - on the 2016 figures.

Despite the frustrations, Oxfordshire's drivers may take some comfort in the fact that delays in the county are still less than in England overall.

The country's A roads have an average delay time of 47 seconds per mile.

Queues are frequently caused by crashes, emergency repairs, broken down vehicles and peak hours congestion.