CABINET minister Elizabeth Truss visited Oxfordshire to see progress on a self-driving car project for herself.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury visited Culham Science Park as she welcomed £3.9m new funding for Oxbotica, which tests its vehicles there.

Speaking on Thursday, Ms Truss said: “Exciting technologies like self-driving vehicles offer huge opportunities to drive economic growth and improve people’s lives.

“Culham Science Park is a showcase of cutting-edge British organisations who are leading the world in this area. Innovative, ambitious companies like those here in Oxford are crucial to Britain’s success in the future.”

While she was in Oxfordshire, Miss Truss toured Oxbotica’s facilities.

It is leading the DRIVEN project, which hopes to develop technology for fully driverless journeys.

As part of the its work, the project will finish with an end-to-end driverless journey from London to Oxford, the first of its kind in the world.

The government money is part of a multi-million funding pledge. As part of that another £3m will be spent at another testing site in Millbrook, near Milton Keynes.

Oxbotica, which has its head offices in Summertown, also worked with Ocado to make the first driverless supermarket deliveries last year. The consortium has trialled driverless pods on the Greenwich peninsula in London as part of the GATEWAY project.

The government announced in November 2016 that £100m funding for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles would be spent on projects like the one run by Oxbotica. It said it is seeking to boost the UK’s influence in a market that is expected to be worth more than £900bn by 2035.