Looking for something to do over the holidays? Come on down to Cornerstone for our brand-new summer-long Didcot Garden Party.

The summer fun starts from 24 July with something different for everyone each weekend throughout the school holidays.

Each weekend from 11am – 4pm, the town square area outside Cornerstone will be transformed to a garden party and will be packed with a range of fun activities, shows and entertainment including street theatre, Parkour, circus, dance and much, much more!    

We launched the full programme on Friday 16 July on the Cornerstone website. 

With Covid case numbers increasing, more people are finding themselves having to self-isolate as a result of a positive diagnosis or close contact with someone who has tested positive. 

It’s so important to self-isolate in either scenario to help stop the spread, but we know this is difficult for people and it’s tempting to just pop out to get the shopping or run an errand. 

That’s where the community hub comes in – we’re continuing to help link residents up to food support, either by signposting to help organising shopping, arranging for a click and collect shopping order to be collected or getting an emergency food parcel out. 

Residents may even be eligible for financial assistance if they risk losing earnings because they’ve had to self-isolate, more information is available on our website.

We have been working with the other councils in Oxfordshire on a countywide air quality community website to help raise awareness and inform the public about air pollution in their area. We’d like to know what you what kinds of things you would like the website to tell you.

Please fill in the survey that Oxford City Council is kindly hosting to give us your thoughts and ideas - the deadline to submit your comments is 5 September. 

The splash pads at the Riverside outdoor pool area in Wallingford reopened today in time for the school holidays. We’ve extensively refurbished the whole area and have introduced two new wooden character sculptures, a river monster and crocodile. 

If you’re a keen gardener but you aren’t yet a customer of our garden waste service, we have some good news. You can now sign up to get a brown bin for your grass, trimmings, clippings, cuttings, weeds, branches, brambles and much more that we’ll empty fortnightly. 

We’ve now reopened the service to new subscribers after a short pause while we updated our systems. If you’d like to sign up to our optional paid-for garden waste service, head on over to our website. 

Communities are encouraged to organise a river clean up on Sunday 26 September, to coincide with World Rivers Day. 

The event aims to clean up the River Thames and raise awareness of the climate and ecological emergencies.  

Events taking place on the day will help to restore river health, cut down on pollution, and protect and enhance the cleanliness, biodiversity and natural setting of the River Thames.    

As well as carrying out a clean-up, groups are also encouraged to have information stalls and talks to raise awareness about water quality and sewage discharge, create community cohesion around caring for the river Thames, and enhance the wellbeing of the community.  

If you’d like to organise a local event there are a number of organisations that can offer advice and support:
 
Clean Access Clear Waters  
World Rivers Day  
Wandle Trust
Thames 21  

Why not let us know if you are planning to organise your own river clean up, whether it is on World Rivers Day or a different date communications@southandvale.gov.uk

We’ll have more information about Thames River Clean Up Day in a future South News.