By With the reopening of shops in Oxford City Centre, ODS’ Streetscene team are working harder to keep the city clean.
With the opening of shops and the announcement that restaurants and cafes will be reopening on 4 July, Oxford’s city centre is seeing daily increases in visitors.
Looking after the public spaces is the city council’s wholly owned company, ODS, who are responsible for keeping public spaces clean and sanitised.
Head of Environmental Services at ODS, Bruce Thompson, said:
“The ODS Streetscene team is incredibly proud to be a part of enabling the city of Oxford to get back to business and become, once again, the thriving place that we all love.
Today, the Council have outlined their new cleaning regime called “Oxford Standard,” which includes deep cleaning, hot washing, steam cleaning and regular sanitisation of key areas within the city centre.
Commencing at 5.30am each day, high pressure ‘hot wash’ machines not only clean the streets, but have also been adapted to steam clean and power wash all street furniture. This includes cleaning that was previously done by a broom and cold water, such as the tops and bottoms of benches and between bike racks.
PPE protected Streetscene staff will patrol the city centre throughout the day and, in addition to the mechanised cleaning mentioned above, they have been instructed to sanitise bins, benches and bus shelters at least twice per day.
Public Toilets
Currently, only two of the city centre public toilets are open and as a result, are in frequent use by members of the public.
ODS have increased their cleaning regime for Market Street and Gloucester Green toilets, from a minimum of three times a day, to hourly cleans. Magdalen Street toilets remained closed due to issues maintaining social distancing on entering and exiting. Oxpens Road toilets are closed due to reduced demand and Speedwell Street toilets are closed following recent damage.
Cllr Nigel Chapman, Cabinet Member for Customer Focused Services said:
“We are welcoming shoppers back to Oxford city centre. They may find the shopping experience a bit different but they can be sure of one thing; the Council and its partners at ODS will be making sure that the city centre is as clean and sanitised as it possibly can so that visitors can enjoy and feel safe, as they return to shop in Oxford.”
Photo by Ugur Akdemir on Unsplash
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