OXFORD was featured on TV again – but for all the wrong reasons!

The council’s cleaning team appeared in Monday’s episode of Channel 5’s Filthy Britain SOS, a series following those on the frontline fighting back against fly-tippers.

This week’s episode followed Oxford Direct Services worker Gary Coulthard who is described as ‘one of the city’s most critical first responders in the war against waste’.

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The dad-of-three, who has been doing the job for 15 years, says he knows all the tips and tricks to get through a job, as well as the lingo, describing one location that is popular among repeat offenders as ‘the normal place’.

Oxford Mail:

Pic Jon Lewis. Fly-tipping in Marston in 2016

He said the job is ‘dirty work’, coming across used needles and human waste dumped on the side of the road, but added that ‘somebody has to do it’.

Bruce Thompson, the head of the environmental services at ODS said: “The “Oxford Standard”, which involves more deep cleaning, hot washing, steam cleaning and sanitising, is the new regime we have in place to ensure the city is pleasant and safe for all its residents, workers and visitors.

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"Workers like Gary make sure all of this is done before the city wakes, so that no one is disturbed. Most people don’t know that such a major transformation of Oxford’s streets occurs every day, and we truly would not be able to deliver our cleaning regime so successfully without the dedication of all our employees.”

ODS has made several changes in the wake of coronavirus with a dedicated team kitted out in PPE (masks, gloves and aprons) sanitising the bins, benches and bus shelters in the city once a day.

Filthy Britain SOS airs on Mondays at 9pm on 5STAR.