Some rural roads in Oxfordshire are as poorly maintained as those of an impoverished Third World country, it has been claimed.

Mark Bastow, chairman of Childrey Parish Council, claims roads in the village, near Wantage, are pot-holed, crumbling and dangerous and is demanding urgent action.

Mr Bastow claimed money, which should be used to repair the roads, was being wasted by Oxfordshire County Council on a row over a wrongly-marked footpath in the village. Mr Bastow, who lives in the High Street, said: "Our village roads are a disgrace. Our rural road network is maintained to the standard of an impoverished Third World country. Already the autumn rains are breaking up the surface of the B4001 Hollow Way as it goes down into Childrey.

"Every year villagers have to put up with potholes and a crumbling surface. Whenever there is heavy sustained rain part of Church Row floods because of the inadequacies of the road drains."

He said other rural roads in Oxfordshire were also poorly maintained. Childrey Parish Council said the county council made a mistake by marking a footpath on the wrong side of a fence. They say they have been bullied into opening up this path which goes through the village playing field, and the county council has wasted money putting up stiles at each end of the route while it reviews the situation.

Brian Purcell-Smith, deputy county area engineer, said budget restraints meant money was not available for all road repairs and requests had to be prioritised.

And Andrew Smith, senior county rights of way officer, said the cost of setting up the footpath would have been a fraction of that needed for road maintenance.

Story date: Friday 29 October

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.