COUNTY council leader Keith Mitchell yesterday warned the public still did not realise the full extent of cuts facing Oxfordshire, as another series of money-saving measures were voted through.

The council’s cabinet yesterday backed cuts to youth work funding, reducing the number of tips in the county from eight to six, and closing its home support service with the loss of 320 jobs.

A handful of youngsters protested outside County Hall as councillors decided to stop funding 21 youth centres as part of reorganisation centred on creating seven ‘hubs’ targeting the most troubled youngsters.

Labour’s Liz Brighouse said in areas like Wood Farm, Oxford, youngsters from often deprived backgrounds would be left without professional youth workers.

She said: “These young people need somewhere to go. If they don’t, they will be hanging around the Wood Farm shops as they were doing four years ago.

“They will be seen as young people likely to frighten the elderly as they go about their business.”

But Louise Chapman, who has responsibility for the youth service, said she thought more, not fewer, youth clubs would run across the county, despite the cuts, through community initiatives.

She said 40 groups had asked about the £600,000 Big Society fund set up to support communities run their own services.

And qualified youth workers would still be working in the county despite the £4.2m cuts. Ms Chapman said: “We are probably one of lowest cutting councils in the county for youth services, down at the 30 per cent mark.”

Outside, youngsters said they would carry on fighting the cuts.

Kieran Butler, 13, from Witney added: “I found it pathetic. Young people have no rights now.

“Councillor Chapman’s story did not make sense – she wants youth clubs to be open, but voted for cuts.”

And Charlie Riley, 18, from Abingdon, told the Oxford Mail: “It is not right.

“I have had mental health problems, and youth work saved my life.

“Youth workers have given me confidence, self esteem. They have given me everything.”

The cabinet also backed closing down the home support service for 500 vulnerable pensioners by April 2012.

It provides domestic support to pensioners in their own homes. The service will now be transferred to private companies, saving between £1.5m and £2.5m a year.

Building a new tip at Kidlington and close down the Dean Pit, Ardley and Stanford in the Vale tips will save another £750,000.

During the meeting, council leader Keith Mitchell, right, asked his efficiencies supremo Charles Shouler: “Would you agree that the public as a whole does not have the slightest idea of the scale of cuts we have to make over the next three or four years?”

Mr Shouler said the nation faced a “period of austerity”.