WYRE Forest is heading for crisis unless Worcestershire County Council finds more money for road repairs, a councillor has warned.

District Liberal councillor Rachel Lewis, who is heading a campaign for improved road and pavement surfaces, said there was already a £10 million backlog of repairs and not enough money to deal with it.

"Unless something is done soon we face real long-term problems over roads and pavements across the district," she said.

"The latest available information actually indicates that, on the present level of funding, full structural repair of roads would only be possible once every 120 years - which is clearly both crazy and unacceptable."

The county's head of highways and transportation, Paul Jameson, said the huge backlog had grown because maintenance had been under-funded by successive governments over 25 years.

"We are now at the sort of levels we should be at but it is not sufficient to make an effect on the backlog," he said.

Mr Jameson accepted that councillor Lewis's £10 million backlog figure was likely to be roughly correct, although there was no accurate measure, but he disputed her claim that there was only £750,000 to be spent in Wyre Forest this financial year, saying the actual figure was £1.9 million.

He predicted that the Government would be "less generous" in the next five years than in the previous five, revealing that he expects to receive about £8 million a year for the next five years under the local transport plan, which will be considered at the end of this month.

Although the current year's funding is also about £8 million, last year's level was £9.4 million and the county received £8.3 million during 2003-04.

"We do not have the finances to do everything we would like to do and have to prioritise work in order to keep things safe," he said.