TWO hundred potholes a day are being repaired in Oxfordshire as the county council battles against the damaging effects of the recent snow.

Motorists have described damage on the county’s roads as the worst in living memory, and the council has allocated an extra £1m to step up repairs following a “huge increase” in potholes caused by the cold snap.

Council spokesman Owen Morton said upwards of 5,000 potholes a month were now being repaired across the county, at an average cost of £75 each.

That is the equivalent of 200 potholes every day and a total of £375,000 a month.

Mr Morton said: “There has been a huge increase in the number of potholes on Oxfordshire’s roads and we have stepped up our efforts to deal with this as an absolute priority.

“The additional £1m was an initial step in recognition of the urgency of the situation. The need for further funding will need to be considered once the full picture is understood.”

In the south of the county yesterday, one contractor had seven teams instead of their normal three out repairing crumbling tarmac on rural roads.

Since the snowfall, the team has been repairing 200 potholes a week, compared to a normal rate of 90.

Manager Graham Chambers, of contractor Enterprise, said: “We are working flat out. Our head office is constantly updating the database of potholes and scheduling three days ahead, and things happen where we have to come off the schedule and go to an emergency pothole. It’s changing every day and every hour.

“The only limitation on us is finance: how much the county is going to spend.”

In South Moreton, one of the repair gangs was fixing four-inch deep potholes which had been seen by a highways inspector on Monday.

Pete Mander and Ivor Griffiths, who have 74 years of experience between them, cut out two sections of road surface with a diamond saw before pouring in bitumen and compressing two layers of tarmac, at £65 a tonne, to form a new surface that should last five years.

Supervisor Clive Chapman said: “The last few weeks have been a nightmare.

“Once you’ve got a hole it doesn’t take long for the traffic to knock bits of stone out and it soon become six inches deep.

“Once one stone comes out, it’s like a jigsaw, it all comes loose.”

Mr Chapman said the company also had staff working through the night to fix potholes.

He added: “If the public reported potholes rather than our inspectors having to go out and find them, they would get done quicker.”

Potholes can be reported via Oxfordshire Highways’ dedicated hotline on 0845 310 1111.