FED-UP motorists and businesses have been promised that the nightmare of Handy Cross will be solved within five years.

Transport minister Keith Hill visited the traffic trouble spot yesterday and promised £3.5 million from the Government for major works at the junction.

He said that any improvements needed to solve the chaos at Handy Cross would be completed within five years.

Marlow Chamber of Trade and Commerce welcomed the ministerial announcement, but said it didn't really go far enough.

Chamber president Colin Berks said Handy Cross was a major junction for M4 and M40 traffic and as such it needed not a roundabout but a proper motorway intersection.

The minister visited the the beleaguered M40 junction yesterday, touring it and other parts of the area by coach, along with councillors and officers from Buckinghamshire and Wycombe district. Afterwards he announced that the work would take place.

Road changes were necessary, he said, because at Handy Cross six streams of traffic converged going to and from Marlow, to High Wycombe, to Cressex Industrial Park, and to London and Birmingham.

At the core of the redesigned junction are new lanes, to separate traffic bound in different directions and to improve flow.

There will be a new slip road from the A404 turning left onto the M40 towards Oxford, which will keep this traffic off the main crossing.

Traffic on the M40 from Oxford wanting to get onto the A404 south will have a completely new bit of road, cutting across the centre of Handy Cross roundabout and avoiding several sets of traffic lights that have to be negotiated at present.

Traffic from London on the M40 and turning off to go onto the A404 south will also have a new lane off the motorway and a dedicated left turn at the lights. Traffic on the A404 from High Wycombe wanting to go to London on the M40 will have an extra lane to improve conditions.