CHURCHES in the county are maintaining high congregation numbers despite facing "huge pressures" to survive, according to local vicars.

It comes after new figures showed weekly church numbers nationally have fallen under one million, half the level of the 1960s.

But statistics in Oxfordshire suggest congregations are actually increasing, with members of the church praising their role in the community.

The last figures for Oxford, taken in 2014, revealed more than 51,000 people attend weekly church services on average, the highest number outside London. This increased from 50,900 in 2013.

Reverend Andrew Bunch, who has led the services in St Giles Church for the past 18 years, said: "We have seen no evidence of declining numbers. There are always older people who are coming back and we also have younger people now getting involved. It is the same across the board.

"But I am terribly aware though that some churches are under huge pressures to keep people in and raise money to get them going.

"We want to build up more of a community feel and church life definitely enhances that. We want to work with the community because there are issues that come up from time to time."

Littlemore vicar Margreet [[cor]] Armistead, who leads services at St Mary and St Michael Church, stressed even if numbers are dropping the church still has a major role in helping local people.

She said: "Our numbers are definitely not declining. We are in a period of transition though as older people pass away and young people start coming.

"We know there are a lot of people who can't go to church on a Sunday morning for many different reasons. But we are still very much a parish church which means a lot for the people who live here."

In the last census, carried out in 2011, one in two people in Oxford said they were Christian.

Oxford Diocese spokeswoman Sarah Meyrick said: "As a diocese we are constantly looking at ways to serve the community, and we are currently focusing a lot of energy on developing a church presence in new areas of housing."

According to the Church of England a weekly average of 980,000 people - 1.8 per cent of the population - went to the church in England in October 2014.