A MULTI-MILLION-pound package of transport improvements including new park-and-rides and workplace car parks in Oxford will be submitted to Oxfordshire County Council.

But the county’s new draft transport plan, setting out measures to ease congestion across the county from next year to 2030, may take many years to come to fruition, as County Hall struggles to find money even for essential road maintenance work.

The local transport plan has already gone through five rounds of consultation. But only schemes largely paid for by developers look to have any real chance of progressing quickly, with motorists facing the prospect of worsening congestion in and around Oxford for years to come.

Ian Hudspeth, council cabinet member for growth and infrastructure, said: “For the first five years of the plan’s timescale we will probably be looking at the maintenance of the current net work rather than any expansion.”

Only Bicester, where an eco-settlement is being created north-west of the town, and the so-called Science Vale, incorporating Didcot, Wantage, Grove and Harwell, are expected to attract funding.

Expanded park-and-rides are listed as crucial, with possible sites at Eynsham and Bicester, along with others at locations “more remote from Oxford”.

The plan contains a series of bus priority measures, among them on the A40, the approach to Swinford toll bridge and Thornhill park-and-ride.

County Hall also wants to redesign Frideswide Square to create a new gateway to the city, with measures to reduce traffic in the university science area.

The plan also commits the council to introducing 50mph speed limits on all single-carriageway rural roads.

The public consultation will run from October 4 to January 9, 2011.