DRIVERS face paying more to park on streets and worsening roads while social services and children’s groups are also likely to be hit in the wave of cuts Oxfordshire County Council is looking at.

The county this morning announced the areas it was looking at making cutbacks in as well as options for raising extra cash to meet a new figure of £106m savings it says have to be made over the next five years.

And the announcement confirmed the news from June that up to 500 jobs at the council are also likely to go.

Final confirmation will come in January, but senior councillors have been told they will have to make “tough choices” to hit the new target of £106m — up £16m from June’s initial estimate of £90m savings.

It is, however, looking to reinvest £75m of the cuts to deliver services more efficiently. This includes social care for old people, additional support for careres, increased funding for children’s social care and support for retained fire stations and firefighters.

Among the proposals are:

* An increase of £10 in Oxford for residents parking permits

* Scrapping the free onstreet parking charges in the evenings and Sundays in the city

* New areas where motorists will have to pay to park in Oxford

* And reviewing on-street parking charges in the city

* Cutting ‘non-essential’ highway repairs and maintenance

* Job cuts and work to ‘streamline all back office functions and dramatically lower bureaucracy’

* Reducing the costs of the Youth Service

* Savings in adult social care and day services provision

* Reduced direct funding for the school improvement service

* More street lights turned out in Oxfordshire

* Abolishing the Chill Out Fund, which gives grants for youth work

* Savings in home to school transport with possible reductions in levels of subsidy for concessionary fares

* Freezes to councillors' allowances

* Reductions in amount of money spent on maintenance and repair of council owned buildings/offices

* Requiring outdoor education centres to be self-financing or face closure

* Abolition of the youth parliament

* Possible reprovision of the county council’s consumer advice service through redirecting Oxfordshire residents to the national service

* Closing the fire cadets scheme at The Slade, Cowley, Kidlington, Banbury and Witney