A CALL has gone out for the Government to do more help tackle the pothole problem in Oxfordshire following several weeks of snow and ice.

Roads have taken the brunt of freezing weather with dozens more potholes being reported to Oxfordshire County Council in recent weeks.

More than a dozen were registered last week but many more have not been reported.

It comes as a prominent campaigner said the state of some of the roads across is now so poor they would need to close if the cold with continued.

Elsewhere, Green deputy leader on Oxford City Council and keen cyclist, Councillor Craig Simmons, said a deep pothole in Carfax showed lives were at risk.

He said: “All the roads are all pretty bad. The state of the roads (in Carfax) is appalling. You understand roughness here and there but this is just bad maintenance.

"When it gets bad it endangers lives. It’s not out the way, it’s in the centre of town.”

According to FixMyStreet, a website which the county council encourages residents to use to report road problems, there have been 10 reports of a pothole or complaints over the junction of High Street and St Aldates alone since 2013.

Oxfordshire County Council has said a third of all road stretches studied will work done but money set aside for road repairs has almost halved since 2010.

The council's highway revenue budget for staff and works in 2010 was £34.6m – but this financial year is £17.5m.

Last year, the council’s director for infrastructure delivery Owen Jenkins admitted the condition of roads was going ‘downhill’.

Tina Matthews, who lives in Barton, said defects had been scarring Barton Village Road ‘for years’ and she agreed that the state of the roads is endangering road users.

The Bernwood Road resident said: “There is a stretch of road that goes down a hill and it’s not potholes as such but it’s very undulating and broken up and when a cyclist goes through it, it’s a bone shaker. The cyclist comes out into the middle of the road to avoid it.

“(Potholes are) a blight, they’re not pretty, they’re not fun to drive over. I have had incidents where cyclists have swerved out to avoid a pothole. It’s awful and (councils are) just not repairing the roads."

In Abingdon, a deep pothole has appeared in the last two weeks on key commuter route, Dunmore Road.

One driver, who did not want to be named, said: "It's something you have to look out for as it could really damage your car."

In Oxford, the city council carries out work on side roads but funding is still provided by the county council.

Mark Morrell, more widely known as road campaigner Mr Pothole, said: “If we had a really bad month for snow and winter, many of our roads should be restricted, some should have warning lights against them and (we should be) closing them. Some of them will be that bad."

Mr Morrell, who lives in Northamptonshire but regularly visits Oxfordshire, blamed Government budget cuts over recent years

He urged the Government set out a 15 to 20-year plan to improve roads, operated by a new body separate from the Highways Agency to deal with the problem.

Martin Crabtree, Oxfordshire County Council spokesman, said: “This winter so far has so far been cooler than previous years, but at this stage it is not possible to say how the rest of the winter will progress and ultimately whether the Government will provide any additional road maintenance funding.

“Nothing has altered as far as fixing road defects is concerned. We carry out inspections and also receive reports from the public via FixMyStreet and these help us to identify where repairs are needed and how they should be prioritised.

“Defects that are found to meet our criteria are fixed as normal. In the longer term the information we gather on defects and the condition of the roads helps us to prioritise our resources for resurfacing and other maintenance work.

“The Carfax area is inspected on a monthly basis and any problems picked up through those inspections, or reported to us by members of the public, are dealt with as usual.”

The Department for Transport was asked to comment.