COMMUNITIES have been asked to fix their own potholes as the county council expands a volunteer scheme amid funding pressures.

Parish and town councils are being encouraged to fund and take responsibility for repairing potholes, installing road signs and maintaining kerbs.

'Eyes & Ears' volunteers would be relied upon to reduce the need for the council to send an officer in person while 'FixMyStreet superusers' - also local volunteers - could order pothole repair works using the council's intervention criteria.

Local 'champions' could also be required to co-ordinate responses to heavy snow or traffic management for local events as Oxfordshire County Council looks to broaden its Oxfordshire Together (OXTOG) initiative.

Berinsfield Parish Council could become the first to agree to repairing its own potholes after discussions with county council officers revealed the extent of funding constraints.

But Kennington Parish Council chairman, Colin Charlett, said the village had declined the offer and the initiative was a 'backwards step'.

He said: "The county council collects money from people for this sort of work so they should be doing it.

"Some years ago we took on the grass cutting, they gave us a grant initially to make it appealing but then it was slowly reduced.

"The council are trying to offload work onto others, including volunteers - how will far will it end up going, the roads are an absolute disgrace."

"The smaller villages might be tempted by it, but Kennington is used as a rat run and the main road through it is in very bad condition.

"If we took on road maintenance I suspect we would never see it resurfaced."

He added: "Small parish councils would only use contractors very occasionally and would most likely be charged top dollar.

"The county council would be using contractors for plenty of work and should be able to get a better price and better value for money."

Berinsfield Parish Council said that based on the size of the village - 7.3km or 0.143 per cent of the county's network - £2,288 of the £1.6m potholes budget would be available for Berinsfield.

This would cover approximately 50 potholes but earlier this year BPC revealed there were 1,500 outstanding pothole reports in the village after winter conditions 'effectively destroyed the roads'.

The parish council has asked to meet with the county's service manager for transport with a view to taking on pothole repairs.

Oxfordshire County Council revealed plans to broaden its OXTOG scheme after a customer satisfaction survey found the condition of the Oxfordshire's roads was affecting the public perception of the county council.

In a report, Paul Fermer, service manager for major infrastructure delivery, said: "The County Council is currently receiving a high level of correspondence regarding dissatisfaction about the condition of Oxfordshire's roads.

"In addition, a recent general customer satisfaction survey indicates that this may also be playing a part in how the public perceive the council as a whole.

"Highways already has the Oxfordshire Together (OXTOG) initiative, the offer has been available for a while now and is relatively successful.

"Take up initially had been slow and mainly focused on grass cutting, but is starting to spark more interest.

"With continuing resource pressures and desire for the county council to work more locally, we are keen to refresh and broaden initiatives under OXTOG."

So far volunteers have stepped forward in Tiddington, Shiplake and Horton-cum-Studley.

Spokesman for Oxfordshire County Council, Martin Crabtree, said: "We have already had some success in sharing road-related responsibilities with parishes with a number taking on grass cutting enabling greater local control of when and how often to cut.

"This joint work means that we have already started to explore and test out new and positive working relationships.

"Working more closely with parish councils is something that other highway authorities are also doing at the moment and we hope, with the right arrangements, people will see improvements locally."