Oldham CouncilWorking for a co-operative borough

Oldham Council has quietly rolled out a winter support page that pulls together school-closure alerts, gritting updates, and emergency heating help in one place. For parents who used to dig through three different sites before 7 a.m. to see if the gates were open, the change is small but noticeable.

The same hub links to housing advice, letting tenants apply for social homes or homelessness support without hunting for separate forms. Staff say the move is aimed at cutting call-centre traffic during the months when residents ring most often about frozen pipes and rent arrears.

Recycling calendars, council-tax balances and pest-control reports sit alongside benefits calculators, so a single visit can settle a missed-bin query and check whether a family qualifies for Council Tax Reduction. The council has not claimed any savings yet, but it has stopped printing 12,000 winter-leaflet copies that usually land in January.

Markets, parks and library events are listed too, though opening times are still shown as 'check locally'. One lingering gap is real-time road gritting: the map still displays last year's routes and has not been refreshed with 2026 priority roads.

No fanfare accompanied the launch; the page appeared on 23 February during a routine website update. Whether residents notice, or simply keep ringing the town hall, will become clear when the next cold snap hits.