Join the conversation

 

You can make a real difference to your local community by Joining the Conversation in South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse.

Every year, we make lots of decisions that affect your communities. That's why we want your input. Find all the opportunities to get involved here – and let us know your thoughts on issues that matter to you.

You can see all of our live and closed consultations and surveys as well as the results below.


Open activities

  • Household Support Voucher Scheme Referral - Agency Feedback

    Thank you in advance for your feedback. Your thoughts and reflections are invaluable to us and will help us review the last round of the councils' Household Support Voucher Scheme, which ran from July to September 2024. Personal data Your feedback is anonymous. Any personal information...

    Closes 20 December 2024

  • Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Festive Quiz

    It’s time to Rethink Waste! We recently launched a plan encouraging everyone to Rethink Waste! We want to enable people to reuse, repair, refill and rehome items, instead of throwing them away. During the festive period, too many items end up in waste. T est your knowledge on...

    Closes 5 January 2025

  • Joint Local Plan 2041: Consultation on Technical Addendum to the Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report

    We have prepared a Sustainability Report as part of the combined Sustainability Appraisal (SA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) process for the Joint Local Plan 2041. The first stage in the SA process was the production of a SA Screening and Scoping Report, which was published...

    Closes 17 January 2025

  • Your chance to get involved with Didcot Garden Town: sign-up form

    It is an exciting time for the Didcot Garden Town project as it comes off the delivery plan pages into real life community projects! The garden town team are implementing the new refocused Didcot Garden Town (DGT) Delivery Plan, which was approved in 2022. They are working on how to deliver...

    Closes 31 March 2025

  • Equalities database: sign up form

    Are you a voluntary organisation or community group that represents any of the ‘protected characteristics'? The Equality Act 2010 introduced the term “protected characteristics” to refer to groups that are protected under the Act. Protected characteristics are legally defined as: age...

    Closes 31 March 2025

  • Compliments and Comments Feedback Form

    We always aim to provide a high standard of service, but try as we might, we may not always get it right first time. We value feedback about our services and welcome any comments which can help us to continue to improve the service we provide at the district council. Equally, we would...

    Closes 4 April 2025

  • Cornerstone in Didcot: your feedback

    Thank you for visiting Cornerstone, we hope you have enjoyed the show! We would really appreciate if you could take a few minutes to rate your experience.

    Closes 7 September 2028

Closed activities

We asked, you said, we did

Below are outcomes for some of the issues we've recently asked about. See all outcomes

We asked

Residents living in South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse, who use the waste services, to provide feedback on the services.

The survey included questions about the waste and recycling collection service, street cleansing, food waste service, reduce, reuse, repair, recycle, and bins, as well as actions the councils should focus on.

The survey ran for six weeks until 23 April 2024.

You said

We received 252 responses to the survey.

Some of the key outcomes are below.

  • Overall, 86% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the waste and recycling collection service. Respondents were satisfied with the reliability of the service i.e. collecting on the correct date (86%), the state their bins have been returned i.e. not damaged (66%) and how the collection team returned their bins to the correct location (54%).
  • 82% use the food waste collection service, while 12% do not and 6% sometimes use it.
  • 36% of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with street cleanliness and 40% with road sweeping across the districts.
  • 62% of respondents didn’t know the following five stages form part of the waste management hierarchy: 1. reduce the number of things we buy, 2. reuse and repair, 3. recycle, 4. energy recovery or incineration and 5. disposal or landfill.

You can view the full survey summary report here.

We did

We have used the survey to form part of our annual report to the Joint Scrutiny Committee on the performance of our waste and street cleansing contract provider, Biffa Municipal. 

In addition, information received is being used to help form our 2025/26 communications plan.  

We asked

For comments on the Garsington Neighbourhood Plan that was submitted to South Oxfordshire District Council in February 2023.

In June 2023, a public consultation on the draft plan was carried out. The draft plan, documents and results were published and submitted to an independent examiner.

The examiner issued a Clarification Note which set out initial comments on the submitted plan and areas where further clarification would be helpful. As a result, modifications were proposed to the plan.

South Oxfordshire District Council then invited comments on the significant modifications in February 2024 for a 6-week consultation period.

You can view further information about the consultation on the Garsington Neighbourhood Plan Page.

You said

6 responses were received to the significant modifications consultation.

Click here to view the comments received. 

We did

On 5 September 2024, residents voted on whether they agreed or disagreed with the adoption of the Garsington Neighbourhood Plan. The official results were:

  • Votes in favour of adopting the neighbourhood plan (YES vote): 369 (95.6%)
  • Votes against adopting the neighbourhood plan (NO vote): 17 (4.4%)
  • Turnout: 386 (27.5%)

Garsington Neighbourhood Plan was adopted on 24 October 2024.

We asked

For comments on the Beckley and Stowood Parish Neighbourhood Plan that was submitted to South Oxfordshire District Council in February 2023.

In March 2023, a public consultation on the draft plan was carried out.

The draft plan, documents and responses were published and submitted for examination.

The Independent Examiner advised the District Council that a package of modifications was required to the Plan to ensure that it meets the basic conditions.

The district council prepared an updated Strategic Environmental Assessment Screening considering the significant modifications proposed by the independent examiner.

South Oxfordshire District Council then invited comments on the significant modifications in January 2024 for a 6-week consultation period.

You can view further information about the consultation on the Beckley and Stowood Neighbourhood Plan Page.

You said

18 responses were received to the significant modifications consultation.

Click here to view the comments received.

We did

The council determined on 4 July 2024 that the Plan, as modified by the Examiner’s recommendations, should proceed to referendum.

A referendum was held on Thursday 5 September 2024 and 78.3% of those who voted were in favour of the plan.

Beckley and Stowood Neighbourhood Plan was adopted on 24 October 2024.