Transport schemes across Oxfordshire are in disarray after changes in Government funding left the county council with a £13m shortfall.

Plans to improve bus services and refurbish Oxford's historic High Street will be hit, along with road safety programmes.

Councillors have been told that spending is having to be severely curtailed because of changes in Treasury rules covering spending on transport schemes. Funding for improving the county's roads is down a quarter to £18m, while the maintenance budget is down £7m.

Plans to improve the High between Turl Street and Longwall Road, with expensive paving stones, new bays and pavement widening, will now have to be dropped.

Graham Jones, secretary of Oxford High Street Business Association, said: "This will come as a great disappointment."

Work to make eastern London Road pedestrian friendly will be put back.

County Hall confirmed that major schemes outside Oxford would also be indefinitely postponed, including the dualling of Marcham Road.

County cabinet member for transport, Ian Hudspeth, said: "The Government raised expectations and allowed us to plan for things that we will now struggle to deliver."

The extension of real-time information bus stops will now take place "less quickly than it had been hoped".

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "Every local authority in the country is receiving an increase in core grant. We do not recognise the claims Oxfordshire County Council is making in terms of reduction in funding."