A major fire in the early hours of Thursday morning has caused extensive damage to South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils’ offices in Crowmarsh Gifford. We have put our business continuity plans into action and are currently concentrating on getting the most important front line services back up and running. The following services are working:
- Waste collections and street cleaning
- Leisure centres
- Housing benefits payments should be made as normal
- Council tax payments by phone: 0845 303 8506 (South residents) or 0845 372 3201 (Vale residents)
- The Beacon in Wantage
- Cornerstone Arts Centre in Didcot
- Food and safety are operating a limited service
- Building control are operating a limited service
An emergency line is available for urgent enquiries, for example if people are at risk of being made homeless today, or they have a dangerous structure that needs urgent inspection: 01235 520202. We are busy restoring our online services to get online as soon as possible. We are hoping to have them up and running by the start of next week. Services affected by the fire include, planning, environmental health, finance and housing. We are hoping that later today we can give a clearer idea of how services will be affected and for how long. All formal council meetings this week and next week will go ahead as planned, but any scheduled to take place at Crowmarsh will be relocated. We will provide more updates next week. We’d be grateful if anybody with any day to day enquiries can wait until fully we’re up and running again. The Council's normal website should be restored shortly, but in the meantime updates are being given here.