Vale of White Horse District Council
Abbey House, Abbey Close,
Abingdon, OX14 3JE
Email: comments@whitehorsedc.gov.uk
Telephone: 01235 520202

Vale of White Horse District Council

What services is this Council responsible for providing?

The Vale of White Horse District Council provides the following services:

Environmental services

• Collects and recycles domestic waste - see our Collections of rubbish, recycling and brown bins pages
• Cleans streets and public places - see our Street cleaning page
• Monitors atmospheric pollution, noise and contaminated land and investigates complaints - see our Environmental Health pages
• Monitors the safety of bathing waters and private water supplies - see our Water page
• Enforces legislation concerning food safety, including food complaints and food poisoning - see our Food safety pages
• Enforces legislation concerning health and safety at work, including accidents at work and complaints about working conditions - see our Health and safety pages
• Deals with a wide range of public health issues eg defective drainage, deposits of rubbish on private land, pest control, animal welfare, stray dogs, infectious disease control - see our Environmental Health pages
• Carries out a range of licensing activities eg entertainment licensing, street trading consents, licences for ear piercing, acupuncture, tattooing and electrolysis - see our Licensing pages

Housing Services

• Provides housing advice - see our Housing advice pages
• Manages the housing register - see our How to apply for housing pages
• Arranges for temporary accommodation for homeless clients - see our Homelessness prevention page
• Processes grant and loan applications including grants for disable adaptations to homes - see our Help to improve your home pages
• Promotes and provides advice on improving home efficiency - see our Saving energy pages
• Monitors, advises and enforces housing standards across the private sector (including park homes) - see our Private sector housing pages
• Administers housing benefit and Council Tax benefit - see Benefits pages
• Identifies and takes steps to strive to meet the current and future housing needs of local residents
• Provides Closed Circuit Television Camera services - see our CCTV page
• Works in partnership on community safety issues - see our Community Safety pages

Planning Services

• Prepares and consults on statutory plans for land use and development in the district - see our Planning policy pages
• Gives expert advice to developers and the general public to help ensure developments take place in accordance with the Local Development Framework and Government policy - see our Local Development Framework page
• Scrutinises and determines planning applications - see our Planning application pages
• Investigates contraventions of planning approvals and regulation and takes appropriate action - see our Planning enforcement pages

Cultural and Recreational Services

• Supports community arts development and public art commissioning - see our Arts development pages
• Manages contracts for sports and leisure facilities - see our Sports and fitness facilities
• Works to increase participation in sport by developing a programme of activities which matches the needs and aspirations of all sections of the community - see our Sports development pages
• Provides grant aid to local voluntary groups - see our Community grants pages
• Manages parks and open spaces – including playing fields, nature reserves and woodland - see our Parks and Landscape services pages

Transport Services

• Provides assisted travel schemes for travelling around the Vale area for people with certain disabilities and those aged 60 or over - see our Assisted travel and bus passes
• Licences taxis and private hire vehicles - see our Taxi licences page
• Provides and manages off street car parking, including collecting charges - see our Car parking page
• Works in partnership to develop integrated transport systems in Abingdon, Wantage and Didcot - see our Abingdon Integrated Transport Strategy page

We also provide the following services: 

• Council Tax collection
• Elections and electoral registration
• Economic development
• Pest control
• Emergency planning
• Abandoned vehicles

What services are provided by other organisations?

If the service you are interested in is not on this list it maybe provided by another agency or authority, including Oxfordshire County Council, which is responsible for:

• Schools
• Social services
• The fire service
• Roads
• Libraries and the museums service
• Trading standards
• Land use
• Transport planning
• Waste management, including commercial waste, schools waste and the county’s waste recycling centres

The following organisations also provide services locally:

• Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust
• Thames Valley Police
• Parish and town councils