Travelling via bus from his Preston home to Lancaster University twice a week he has spent hours of his life trapped at Broughton roundabout close to junction 32 of the M6.

As Lancashire branch secretary for the Campaign for Better Transport he is only too aware of the misery the blackspot causes for the thousands of exasperated motorists who queue there day after day.

Last month the Highways Agency announced it was considering widening the M6 around junction 32 – where it drops down to two lanes creating the traffic bottleneck – in a bid to ease some of the congestion at what has become one of the region's worst hotspots.

Around a mile before the junction the four-lane motorway splits in two, leaving just two lanes for commuters heading towards Lancaster. The problem is similar heading southbound.

The scheme is some way off fruition, but for regular users of the road the situation is a daily nightmare and the Highways Agency's plans were unsurprisingly welcomed with open arms by motorists.

Mr Turner-Bishop's view of the infamous stretch is no different. So why does he think widening the motorway is the WORST thing highways chiefs can do?

"The answer is don't drive, get out of the car," he explains. "It's simple, if you get a new photocopier or a printer at work, you are going to use it because it is there.

"It is the same with this, the more capacity you build, the more it is going to get used and in six months it will be filled up again.

"It is common sense. If drivers have got a nice warm car with nice leather seats and something good on the stereo you are going to drive.

It is a horrible stretch round there, I have spent hours sitting on buses around Broughton. But if you build new road we will be back to where we were in six months."

Deregulated and sub-standard public transport is to blame for drivers not wanting to get out of their cars, he says, while the Government should be doing more to get motorists to share cars or get companies to provide their own transport.

David Clarke, Lancashire chairman of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, argues motorway widening is devastating the environment.

The former BAE worker makes regular journeys past the junction on visits to his son n Warrington: "Motorists are lazy and everyone who uses that stretch basically takes the view that it is not their problem. We need to be more responsible in how we use the roads.

"The idea which was floated in Preston some weeks ago about staggering people's workdays is a good way of getting people to change their lifestyles.

"People will say they can't do it but I'm sure they could and they are just being lazy – they can do it.

"The problem we have got with junction 32 is the design is fundamentally flawed. It should have separated the Blackpool traffic as far back as junction 31A and had it on a flyover.

"Even then the CPRE would have complained because it is taking up land space but if they want to reduce road congestion and not create too many emissions that would be the least evil way of doing it."

More use of technology could help stem the growing tide of traffic, he argues.