EMERGENCY evacuations sparked by fire, flooded rivers and a burst water mains have cost Oxfordshire taxpayers more than £77,000 over the past year.

Oxfordshire County Council coordinated four emergency evacuations between January 2007 and January 2008.

Fifty people were evacuated from Normandy Crescent, in Cowley, after a water mains burst last January.

Residents were evacuated to the nearby council-owned Shotover Day Centre for one day at no cost to County Hall, but food and emergency supplies cost £380.

Some were later moved to the Premier Travel Inn, Cowley, where a few stayed for up to four months - but Thames Water picked up the bill.

Just six months later, in July, about 100 people were evacuated to the Kassam Stadium complex after floods struck the county.

The county council spent £27,550 on emergency accommodation for up to eight nights. It also spent £4,500 on transport, £1,202 on emergency supplies and £36,145 on food for evacuees and emergency workers.

In January 2008, the county council evacuated residents from Bablockhythe, due to floodsbut did not have to accommodate any of them because they all stayed with relatives.

The county council did spend £145 on food - transport costs are not yet known.

An explosion at a petrol station in Sutton Courtenay the same month saw 93 people evacuated to the Kassam Stadium with food and one night's accommodation costing £6,500 and emergency supplies costing £780.

The total cost to date of all four evacuations was £77,202 - but former evacuees said it was money well spent.

Yvonne Cocking, 78, was put up in a hotel at the Kassam Stadium after being evacuated from her house in Sutton Courtenay.

She said: "It sounds like a lot to an individual, but in terms of public money I suppose it is not too bad."

Normandy Crescent resident, Joseph Pearson, 77, said: "The council did all they could for us. I think it was worth every penny."

The county council's chief emergency planning officer, John Kelly, said spending the money was essential: "It is hard to see how people whose homes are plunged into the midst of an emergency can be left to fend for themselves."