FRUSTRATED Marlow residents will have to wait several months longer for a solution to their traffic problems, it was revealed this week.

The admission from road bosses is likely to infuriate local businesses who have already suffered an 18-month delay since a major traffic and parking study was carried out.

A solution will arrive, says Rodney Royston, the Buckinghamshire County Council cabinet member for transportation, but it will take time.

"We are beavering away," said Cllr Royston. "But this is a big thing, so it won't happen tomorrow. It is a major structural rethink, so it can't happen quickly."

It now looks as if the traffic strategy for Marlow should be published at the end of the year for public comment.

In addition a parking management plan for the whole town will be published in August, again for people to have their say.

Marlow has been beset for years with congestion, access and parking problems. The county council and Wycombe District Council commissioned a survey from Halcrow Fox in 1998. It reported at the end of 1999, and among other things suggested a park and ride site.

The 18-month delay since then has annoyed local councillors and Marlow Chamber of Commerce.

And Cllr Royston agreed that communication about progress had not been all it might.

Colin Berks, president of the chamber, said the park and ride site would take cars out of the town, help solve long-stay parking problems and make a town bus service viable.

Mr Berks is sending a question about the delay to Wednesday's meeting in Marlow of the Wycombe Area Committee, an organisation which looks at traffic and safety issues.

Mayor of Marlow, Maurice Oram, said he and other councillors had been chasing everyone in sight to find out what was going on.

"We are supposed to be getting some information, but at the moment there is nothing. We do know that the groundwork is going on.

"People are going round counting parked cars and so on. We think we shall have something by the end of the year, though nothing is coming out at the moment," he said.

The man in charge of the project, John Currell, the county's head of transportation, said he could understand people being irritated by the delay.

"But we are slowly moving forward. The traffic survey round the junction of the A404 and Little Marlow Road is complete," he said.

The next stage was for consultants to design outline plans for the whole of Little Marlow Road, from the town centre to the bypass.

This would cover the town centre, the A4155, the junction with Parkway and access to Globe Park.

Once the consultants doing the work were on board, Mr Currell said all interested parties would be invited to a meeting to tell them what was happening.

A complete set of plans should go out to public consultations by the end of the year, he said.