Published: Wednesday, 13 January 2021

ODS, Oxford City Council’s wholly owned company, will prioritise its essential services to residents during the current lockdown.

Ongoing services include:   

  • waste, food waste and recycling collections, including real, unadorned, Christmas trees.
  • cleaning in the city centre and district centres
  • pest control
  • street cleaning and litter picking, cemeteries maintenance, emergency tree work and general response highways and engineering services including repairing safety defects, jetting and winter gritting, landscaping and highways schemes
  • internal emergency and urgent responsive housing repairs
  • external housing repair work, disabled adaptations and work on void properties
  • MOT testing
  • construction projects.

To ensure ODS can do this, and in order to comply with lockdown regulations, some non-essential services will be suspended. These include:

  • grass cutting, grounds maintenance and non-essential tree work in parks and open spaces. Pavilion and sports facilities are closed
  • kitchens and bathrooms work as this involves extended presence by ODS staff inside, in confined spaces.

The recycling sites, run by Oxfordshire County Council, remain open.

The Oxford Bus Company will cease their service from Peartree Park and Ride with effect from 17 January. In light of this the City Council will close the site from this date, with the view to re-opening when the service resumes. Signage will be posted at the site users of the closure and reminding them to ensure their vehicle is removed. Season tickets are valid for all of the park and rides

“The City Council and ODS are determined to keep vital services going for our residents during this lockdown. To do this we need to target our resources where they will be most effective and this will mean we need to suspend some of the less essential services we offer. With Covid cases rising in the city and more staff having to self isolate, we must ensure we have enough staff to deliver our vital services which are used by most of the population. 

“We look forward to ODS resuming all suspended services once the circumstances permit it.”

Councillor Nigel Chapman, Cabinet Member for Customer Focused Services

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