DRIVERS who use the A417 know the pain of sitting in traffic jams – and now it has been revealed that the ‘missing link’ is in the top 10 per cent in the country for delays.

Transport Minister Baroness Kramer said statistics show that the single-carriageway stretch of the road between the Air Balloon and Nettleton/Cowley roundabouts is in the top 10 per cent for delays to journeys.

She was responding to a letter from Liberal Democrat Lord Paul Tyler, who lives near the A417, in which he asked for up to date statistics on the notorious road, as well as a timetable to be set for the start of improvements if a £225 million project to transform the route is approved by the government.

Baroness Kramer, a Lib Dem, wrote: “It is within the top 10 per cent nationally, which affects the performance of the route.”

Paul Hodgkinson, the Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for the Cotswolds, who is also a councillor for the Air Balloon roundabout area, said the 10 per cent figure had come as a surprise.

“We’re all painfully aware of the delays we face sitting in traffic there but I didn’t appreciate just how badly it rates across the entire country,” he said.

“It is yet another reason why the Government must act quickly to sort this out once and for all. It is a huge drag on the local economy and a pollution blackspot which demands action.”

Lord Tyler had also asked Baroness Kramer to take recent serious crashes on the route – as well as the long-term record of accidents – into account when the Government decides whether to fund the scheme known as the A417 Loop.

Baroness Kramer responded: “During 2013 the number of collisions recorded between the Cowley roundabout and the A417/A46 junction totalled eight, resulting in 16 casualties. Of these casualties, three were fatal, two were serious and 11 resulted in slight injuries.

“The collision location data for the Midlands to Wales and Gloucestershire route shows that this location does not fall within the top 250 collision locations nationally.”

Baroness Kramer said she hopes the Road Investment Strategy will be completed by the end of the year.

Part of this strategy will be a decision on whether to accept Gloucestershire County Council’s bid for £225 million for the Loop scheme.

It would include turning the single-carriageway section into a dual, transforming the Air Balloon roundabout into a junction, a bypass at Nettleton Bottom, and improvements to the junctions along the route.