A £10m backlog of road repairs in Oxford and the poor standard of work carried out are angering residents, city councillors say.

The county council, which looks after major routes, has allocated £1.2m for maintenance of residential roads in the coming year.

It has just £10m for the whole of Oxfordshire in 2003/4 and says the backlog of repairs for the county is £150m.

Alex Hollingsworth, leader of the Labour-run city council, has pledged to lobby the county for more cash for road repairs.

He said: "The priority of the county council is towards road safety schemes. That is a positive thing to do but is carried out at the expense of low-level maintenance."

Bob Price (Lab), who represents Hinksey Park ward, said: "I have every sympathy with county councillors and their officers on this issue because they are strapped for cash like us."

He said poor quality resurfacing work was responsible for blocking drains in streets off Abingdon Road, which led to flooding earlier this year.

The city council's executive board on June 9 heard that there were problems caused by work carried out by both their City Works staff, who carry out repairs to minor roads, and county council contractors.

Substandard work has been found in Field Avenue in Blackbird Leys, Fettiplace Road in Barton, Ashurst Way in Rose Hill, Kingston Road in north Oxford and Great Clarendon Street in Jericho.

Paul Sargent, Liberal Democrat councillor for Carfax ward, claimed York stone paving, laid outside Borders Bookshop and the Randolph Hotel, was already starting to look "dodgy", with some slabs loose. He demanded better monitoring of repair projects.

Mr Hollingsworth said he hoped the situation would improve when the city council appointed a new environmental services director.

The executive board meeting also heard that last week, residents in Victoria Road, Cutteslowe, were left furious after being unable to get their cars out of their drives because they had not been warned about resurfacing work near their homes.

City councillors are now promising better liaison between the two authorities in a bid to improve the quality of repairs. They agreed to make representations to the county's environment scrutiny committee, which is also examining the problem.

County council leader Keith Mitchell said: "The city council gets the same funding allocation as other parts of the county."

David Robertson, the county's executive member for transport, added: "The backlog of roads maintenance for the whole county is £150m.

"It is part of the Government's Local Transport Plan to eliminate the backlog by 2010 but I think they are being a bit too optimistic.

"Our total budget only meets about 16 per cent of the actual need, and I believe the city council gets a slightly more favourable settlement compared to other parts of the county."

In April, the county council was given £19.9m of capital funding to spend on transport schemes --£10m for roads maintenance and £9.9m on integrated transport strategies.

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