The county council's transport chief has insisted everything was done to make the roads safe during lasts night's cold snap.

Ian Hudspeth, Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet member for transport, said gritting lorries were out on the roads between 8pm yesterday and 5am this morning.

He said: "Basically, we have a plan that does not normally swing into action until mid-November. This is the first time in 70 years that we have seen snow in October.

"We had priority one and priority two roads, and our programme last night first dealt with the A-roads in our networks and the major roads.

"Then we turned to roads linking in with the major towns and villages and worked through the night until everything was completed."

Mr Hudspeth said they had become aware of some areas where roads had frozen over after being gritted, and that teams would be going out to those this morning.

He added: "We did everything that we could do."