COUNCIL staff are working over the weekend to try to get the IT and phone systems up and running after Thursday's fire in Crowmarsh Gifford. 

South and Vale District Councils have said they expected to have their websites back up on Monday night. 

Following the devastating blaze at the offices in Benson Lane during the early hours of Thursday up to 400 staff were forced to work elsewhere. 

A funeral parlour run by Howard Chadwick near the council office entrance and a thatched cottage in Rokemarsh also went up in flames shortly after 3am. 

On the councils' temporary website a statement said: "We are working over the weekend to try and get our IT and phone systems back to normal following the major fire to our offices on Thursday. We expect to have our permanent websites back up and running on Monday evening.

"Whilst some of our services like waste and leisure are working as normal, we are politely asking anybody with a general enquiry to bear with us and not to call until we are able to restore our IT and telephone systems in full.  Please only call if you have a genuine emergency."

The services currently available are: 

 

  • Online council tax and housing benefits service:

For South Oxfordshire residents 

For Vale residents 

An emergency line is available for urgent enquiries, for example if people are at risk of being made homeless today, or they have a dangerous structure that needs urgent inspection: 01235 520202.

Services affected by the fire include, planning, environmental health, finance and housing. 

The councils have said they're hoping that later today they can give a clearer idea of how services will be affected and for how long.

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