HEALTH leaders fear cuts to homeless services could see the number of rough sleepers across Oxfordshire rise into the hundreds.

The most recent estimate from November revealed 90 people were sleeping on the county’s streets – 22 more than the targets set for the districts and Oxford City Council.

And with funding being cut by Oxfordshire County Council to shelters where hundreds more are in temporary accommodation, Oxford Homeless Pathways has warned they could be forced to sleep rough too.

The organisation – which manages O’Hanlon House, Julian Housing, the Oxford Homeless Medical Fund and the Oxford Cooperative Training Scheme – receives funding from the authority.

Chief executive Leslie Dew- hurst called the situation a “big mess”.

Ms Dewhurst added: “At the minute there are somewhere in the region of 300 people in supported accommodation who otherwise would be rough sleeping.

“Where are they going to go? It’s a big mess.”

A report was presented to the county’s Health Improvement Partnership Board last week detailing the situation.

At the meeting on Thursday, committee chairman Ed Turner stressed that cuts to homeless provision could lead to more people sleeping on the streets.

Mr Turner added: “Rough sleepers is a real concern. If the rough sleeping number is 90 now, and if the services are being deleted, we would be doing rather well if we were under a couple of hundred .”

The report showed the number of homeless households in temporary accommodation, based on information from September, was 218 – with 128 of them in Oxford.

It means the councils are on course to miss the target of reducing the number to fewer than 192 by March.

Homelessness is not a county council responsibility, but the authority currently puts cash towards it through ‘housing related support’ services.

At its budget meeting on Tuesday last week, the council agreed to slash its support by 65 per cent – about £1.5m.

Oxford Homeless Pathway has already had to contend with reduced funds from £3.85m to £2.34m in 2014.

This led to the closure of shelter Lucy Faithfull House.

And fellow shelter O’Hanlon House’s kitchen was only saved following an overwhelming response to an Oxford Mail article appealing for volunteers.