THERE will be two distinct points of view over whether the award of £87.1m to the county for road repairs is good news.

Oxfordshire County Council leader Ian Hudspeth is happy to have received the Government announcement yesterday, believing it helps his authority plan the next few years’ worth of work.

Others argue the pot is way too small, especially when looking at the state of the city’s roads. Remember our front page headline in September: The £150m road repair backlog?

Potholes,and their repair, have long been a source of consternation, especially after cold and wet winters that wreck already poor surfaces and damage our vehicles.

The county council is regularly criticised as it struggles to keep on top of the repairs, often because the temporary patches it carries out fail before permanent fixes can be done.

There is logic in the argument that having this pot of money, rather than small annual payments, will let the county do more preventative maintenance rather than being stuck in a reactive cycle.

Some may reason the £87.1m lump sum is not such a terrific settlement as it transpires that Oxfordshire has received £92.7 million in funding for repairs over the previous six years.

That’s a £5.6m shortfall. But when you take into account the Government has been reducing annual payments it might not seem such a bad deal and may help the county get further cash along the way.

Whichever way you look at it the county council has to balance with what the Government provides against what we as residents and businesses demand.

That goes with the territory of local government (and is perhaps the reason councillors felt they needed to give themselves a whopping allowance rise).

But like the £20m in cuts to services we are facing in the county as a result of a smaller Government settlement, people will need to make their own minds up about whether we are getting a fair deal, especially when it comes to next year and the impending elections.