An Oxford park has been described as "filthy" and a "health hazard".

Resident Gordon Shorter says he has been complaining to the city council about it for more than a year.

Work on Hundred Acre park, at the junction of Hundred Acre Close and Hollow Way, Cowley, has been going on for nearly a year.

Gordon ShorterMr Shorter, of Eastfield Close, Headington, said: "It looks diabolical. There are broken bottles, lumps of metal sticking up out of the ground and boulders everywhere. If I had children, I would not let them play there."

A total of £110,000 has been invested in transforming the site of the former Morris Motors sports' ground car park and pavilion into a recreation ground with a children's play and basketball court, but a series of delays has hampered the project.

The work has been funded by developers of the Morris Motor sports' fields, who were required to provide open public space as a condition for getting planning consent.

Bob Staig, parks development manager for the city council, said the project had taken six months longer than it would normally take to build a park.

He said: "There has been a very long delay of about three months when we simply have not been able to do any kind of horticultural work in the park because the weather had been so bad.

"We are conscious that we have taken a long time to complete work on this park due to a series of delays in both the planning process and supplying of equipment.

"I do not believe that there has ever been any danger to anyone using it, although the park has not looked as nice as it should have done. The park is unfinished, but it is not a health hazard."

Mr Staig said the park was not officially open, but it was impossible to stop it being used without building a 6ft fence to keep people out.

Work to lay turf, install play equipment and complete shrub planting at the park should be completed within two weeks.