London has been named the most congested city in Europe, with motorists incredibly spending the equivalent of 17 working days stuck in jams on a 10-mile stretch of the A217 during last year.

A ‘traffic scorecard’ report for 2014 shows UK drivers were the fifth most held-up across the continent, wasting an average of 30 hours in congestion.

The situation is much worse in the capital, where motorists spent a depressing 96 hours stuck in traffic.

A stretch of the A217 from the Rose Hill roundabout in south London to New Kings Road was the most congested road, costing drivers 139 hours (5.8 actual days or 17 working days).

The top five most congested roads in the UK were all in the capital (ranked by annual hours wasted):

  1. A217 Rose Hill Roundabout to New Kings Road 138.6
  2. A215 Albany Road, Camberwell to Shirley Road, Croydon 119.7
  3. A4 Henlys Roundabout, Hounslow to Holborn Circus 113.4
  4. A4 Aldwych to Henlys Roundabout, Hounslow 108
  5. A23 Thornton Heath to Westminster Bridge 95.9

A growing economy and London's population continuing to increase, a rise of 122,100 in 2014, are cited as reasons for drivers spending so much of their lives battling congestion.

The London figure was 14 hours more than 2013, leading to it overtaking Brussels in Belgium as Europe’s most congested city.

Bryan Mistele, president and CEO of real-time traffic information service INRIX, which produced the report, said: “For the third year running, traffic in the UK is up.

"The strong growth of the UK economy and rise in urban populations have resulted in an increase in the demand for road travel, significantly driving levels of congestion up across the country."

Garrett Emmerson, Transport for London's chief operating officer for surface transport, said: "London's continued success has made it one of the world's most popular cities in which to live, work and visit, which also makes it one of the busiest.

"We work hard to keep London's traffic moving every day, through our state-of-the-art technology, traffic control centre and focus on tackling unnecessary roadworks.

“We are seeing unprecedented increases in population and this, combined with strong economic growth and the consequent increase in building and construction, creates more traffic. To tackle this, we need continued, sustained investment to boost capacity and modernise London's road network.

"That's why we invest every penny of our income in improving the capital's transport network, including an unprecedented £4 billion pounds over the next few years to transform junctions, bridges, tunnels, cycling lanes and pedestrian areas."