A HERO farmer who ploughs snow from rural roads as a community service has said the council is putting lives at risk now that it will longer fork out for it to be done.

Christopher Lewis has warned that emergency services cannot drive at the speed they should on rural roads that Oxfordshire County Council no longer pays to clear.

Over the past three days, he has sent his plough man Jon Holmes out to clear roads in four parishes around where he lives in Hinton Waldrist, near Kingston Bagpuize.

The area, covering more than four square miles, is the same area the county used to pay him to clear a decade ago, and the council, South Central Ambulance Service and Wantage MP Ed Vaizey have all said Mr Lewis provided a valuable service.

But since 2009, when Mr Lewis was featured on the front of the Oxford Mail, the county no longer reimburses farmers for the service and has sold the ploughs which they had been using - including one to Mr Lewis - for as little as £40.

Yesterday, after his latest series of phone calls to the council to try to persuade someone how vital the service is, he called the paper to express his exasperation.

Mr Lewis, now in his early 80s, said: "It's too pathetic for words.

"For 30 years we had a plough here which was on-call for the council and if it was going to snow they would call us up then reimburse us.

"That all came to an end, and no one ever gave me a reason why, but we continued to do it.

"I'm not looking for praise – I need to get my cattle fed, but I do pay one of my employees to do it and everyone seems to think I've done a good job.

"I've got letters from Ed Vaizey and from an ambulance first responder who said my road clearance helped him get to an elderly lady who was suffering a cardiac arrest.

"He said that elderly people were clearly at risk from uncleared roads.

"There are others like me doing the same thing but who don't have the time to chase the county up about this."

South Central Ambulance Service, which sent emergency teams out on Sunday night in a special Polaris Multi-Terrain Vehicle, confirmed it was grateful to Mr Lewis.

Spokesman David Gallagher said: "We would like to sincerely thank Mr Lewis for voluntarily helping to clear rural roads in his community following the recent snow, as well as in previous years.

"This makes access easier for all vehicles in the local area, including our ambulances and other emergency vehicles should they be needed."

However, he reassured people: "Where rural roads remained blocked or difficult to drive on in Oxfordshire during the recent bad weather, we were able to deploy a number of vehicles from our 4x4 and off-road fleet, as well as use those from our partners at Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service, to ensure that delays to getting to any patients were kept to a minimum."

Mr Vaizey said he was also grateful to Mr Lewis, but said he did not want to see the current system changed.

He said: "The county council provides a fantastic service keeping our roads clear, as we saw over the weekend and on Monday.

"It’s great that farmers like Chris are happy to help out – we have hundreds of miles of rural roads that simply could not be covered without their help.

"I think the current voluntary support system works well and do not want to see it changed."

Oxfordshire County Council reminded residents that its gritting team covers 1,200 miles of road on every single run and covers all A roads and B roads in the county as well as some C Roads, while Highways England deals with the A43, A34 and M40.

Since 3am on Sunday, the team has covered more than 8,000 miles of road.

Spokesman Paul Smith said: "Our services is similar or better than most other councils in the country.

"No council will ever be able to grit or plough every single stretch of road in its jurisdiction.

"We are therefore very grateful to Mr Lewis. We are also grateful to the many other people who got out a shovel at the weekend and cleared snow. That’s the type of community spirit that should be celebrated. We actively encourage self-help."