Oldham CouncilWorking for a co-operative borough

Oldham Council has quietly rolled out a winter support hub that bundles school-closure alerts, gritting updates, and emergency heating grants on a single web page. For parents who have previously scrolled through three separate sites at 6 a.m. to find out if the gates are open, the change removes a small but familiar stress.

The same page links to help with rent, homelessness, and council-tax reduction, folding winter hardship payments into the housing section. Staff say the aim is to stop people dropping out of the process because they cannot work out which button to press first.

Gritting routes, bin-day changes, and park safety notices are also pulled in, so when schools shut the accompanying travel advice appears automatically. Residents who rely on mobile data rather than home broadband should find the information in fewer clicks, the council notes.

No new money is attached; the move is a reshuffle of existing pages. Whether it actually shortens the queue at the service centre on Union Street will become clear only when the next cold snap hits.