Oxford City Council is planning to cut non-essential services over the coming weeks in order to “comply with lockdown regulations”.
The ODS, a private company owned by Oxford City Council, say it will ensure that services such as street cleaning, urgent housing repairs and MOT testing will continue. Recycling sites will also continue to be available to residents.
However, there will be no grass cutting or ground maintenance, and pavilion and sports facilities will remain closed. Work in kitchens and bathrooms is also due to be suspended owing to the fact that it “involves extended presence by ODS staff inside, in confined spaces”.
From the 17th January the Peartree Park and Ride facility outside the city will also be closed. The Oxford Bus Company has suspended all its services to the destination.
Services that will continue despite the lockdown 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
- Bookings for bulk waste collections
Councillor Nigell Chapman, Cabinet Member for Consumer Focussed Services, said: “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.”
Image: Stephen McKay.
