A FIRM that claimed Oxford's traffic jams were causing concrete to set in the back of its trucks has been given permission to change its delivery route.

Hanson has been supplying builders at the £440m Westgate Shopping Centre but said roadworks “chaos” on the A40 was costing it thousands of pounds in “spoilt” mixture that was arriving at the city centre site too late.

It had been required to use the route via North Oxford to transport concrete from its Stanton Harcourt plant because of planning restrictions placed on it by Oxfordshire County Council.

Today its request to use a different route via the village of Sutton and the Swinford Toll Bridge, into West Oxford, was approved by the local authority's planning and regulation committee.

The firm told the committee that concrete mixed at its Stanton Harcourt plant had to be laid within two hours – or sent back for disposal at a cost of up to £800 per load. It said journeys were taking more than 90 minutes via North Oxford.

South west technical manager Tony Zigler said it was also supplying concrete from a closer location in Horspath, but it was not "physically possible" to meet all of the demand  at Westgate from there alone.

But it was warned by county councillor Charles Mathew, whose division covers Sutton, that the new route would disrupt the lives of villagers.

He added: "These traffic problems  should have been taken into account.

"This is going to interfere with the lives of local people and is going to make traffic problems worse, the roads are extremely narrow."

But Isis county councillor John Tanner said: "We all want to see the Westgate redeveloped as soon as possible and should understand the problems of business.

"Some people will be inconvenienced, but when you embark on any major new scheme you have to expect that."