We work from Enslow Wharf, on the A4095 between Kidlington and Bletchingdon. That puts us close to the middle of the county — Oxford twenty minutes south, Bicester fifteen minutes east, Woodstock and Witney west, Banbury north up the A4260.
Call 01869 254017 Request a site visitMost counties let a scaffolder settle into a routine. Oxfordshire does not. In a single week we might tie into a Victorian terrace in East Oxford, build off a sloping garden on a Cotswold stone cottage near Burford, and put a temporary roof over a thatch in a village outside Thame. The kit is the same. The approach is not.
West Oxfordshire stone is softer and more friable than brick. Tie placement matters, and so does what we tie into — a decorative stone surround is not a fixing point. Expect more ground-bearing solutions and fewer through-ties.
Thatch needs weather protection and clearance, not a scaffold sat against it. Temporary roofs here are usually about protecting the roof covering during works rather than keeping rain off the trades.
Large parts of Oxford, Woodstock, Burford, Henley and Thame sit in conservation areas. Fixings into historic fabric, and anything visible from a public highway, need thinking about before the wagon is loaded.
The growth around Bicester, Didcot, Wantage and Carterton means a lot of modern timber-frame and block work with tight plot boundaries, shared driveways and unfinished ground. Access is usually the constraint, not the structure.
We also work into Buckinghamshire — Aylesbury, Buckingham and Milton Keynes — and into Bedfordshire. If you are not sure whether you are inside our patch, ring and ask. The answer is usually yes.
If the scaffold stands on a public footpath or road, you need a licence before it goes up. Oxfordshire County Council is the highway authority for the whole county, so the licence itself comes from them — but the local district (Cherwell, West Oxfordshire, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse, or Oxford City) is who you deal with on planning and conservation matters that sit alongside it.
Two practical consequences. First, a licence takes time, so tell us early if the scaffold is going anywhere near a pavement. Second, a job in a conservation area may need more than a highway licence, and that is worth knowing before your trades are booked.
Free site visit and quotation. CISRS-qualified scaffolders working to TG20 and SG4. RAMS and a job-specific toolbox talk issued before work starts. Statutory inspections at least every seven days while the scaffold is in use, and after anything that could affect its stability. Advanced CHAS accredited, and Oxfordshire Prestige Awards Scaffold Company of the Year four years running.
If you are a main contractor and need RAMS, insurance certificates or CISRS card records for a pre-qualification file, ask and we will send them.
If any part of the scaffold stands on the footway, the verge or the carriageway, it needs a licence before it goes up. In Oxfordshire that licence always comes from Oxfordshire County Council as highway authority — whichever district the job is in. These are the published figures.
| Oxfordshire County Council | Fee |
|---|---|
| Scaffolding licence, first month | £250 |
| Each further month | £250 |
| Tower scaffold, cherry picker or scissor lift, 2 days | £210 |
Figures correct at October 2026. Councils review fees annually — we confirm the current rate when we quote.
Two things worth knowing. Oxfordshire charges the licence by the month — £250 a month, renewed monthly for as long as the scaffold stands on the highway, so a scaffold up for three months carries three months of licence. And you cannot apply yourself: Oxfordshire only accepts applications from registered scaffolding companies, so it has to come through us. Allow five working days minimum.
Oxfordshire is a two-tier county, and this is the single most common cause of a delayed start. The highway licence comes from Oxfordshire County Council. But planning, conservation area consent and listed building consent come from your district council — and which one depends on where you are:
| District council | Covers |
|---|---|
| Cherwell District Council | Banbury, Bicester, Kidlington, Woodstock |
| West Oxfordshire District Council | Witney, Carterton, Chipping Norton, Burford |
| South Oxfordshire District Council | Didcot, Thame, Henley-on-Thames, Wallingford |
| Vale of White Horse District Council | Abingdon, Wantage, Faringdon, Grove |
| Oxford City Council | Oxford |
Two organisations, two timescales, and on a listed frontage in a conservation area you may need both. The consent is almost always the long pole, not the scaffold. Compare that with Buckinghamshire, Central Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes and West Northamptonshire, which are all unitary — one body, one application. It is a genuine difference in how long an Oxfordshire job takes to get going, and it is worth starting the consent before you book your trades.
Under the Work at Height Regulations 2005, a scaffold must be inspected by a competent person before first use, at intervals of no more than seven days thereafter, and again after anything that could have affected its stability — high winds, an impact, or any alteration. The inspection has to be recorded.
The part most customers do not realise: once the scaffold is handed over, the duty to arrange those seven-day inspections sits with the person using it, not with the scaffolding company. For a homeowner with a builder on site, in practice that is the builder. We do the handover inspection, we tag the scaffold, and we will carry out the weekly inspections as part of the hire if you want us to — but it needs agreeing rather than assuming. A tag is a supplementary check, not the statutory record.
Quotations vary far more than people expect for what looks like the same job. In roughly the order they matter:
If a quotation is materially cheaper than the others it is usually a shorter hire period, a lighter duty class, or no licence included. Worth checking which.
Oxfordshire County Council, for the whole county. Highways sit with the county and planning with the five districts — Cherwell, West Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse, South Oxfordshire and Oxford City — so a scaffold on the footway anywhere from Banbury to Henley needs a section 169 licence from the county, and any conservation or listed-building question goes to the district. We apply for the licence as part of the job.
Oxford, Kidlington, Bicester, Banbury, Witney, Abingdon, Didcot, Thame, Carterton, Chipping Norton, Wallingford, Woodstock, Benson, Chinnor, Wheatley and Eynsham, all linked above. Everywhere else in the county — Faringdon, Wantage, Henley, Burford, Charlbury and the villages — is covered from this page and from the nearest town page.
All of it. Our yard is at Enslow, between Kidlington and Bicester, so Oxford is fifteen minutes, Bicester and Woodstock ten, Witney and Banbury twenty-five, Abingdon and Didcot thirty, and Henley, Faringdon and Wantage about fifty. Nothing in the county is a long trip, which is why we do not charge for site visits or quotations anywhere in it.
Yes, and it is a large part of our work in the west of the county. Ashlar and rubble limestone do not take drilled anchors well and a conservation officer will not want them anyway, so we tie through openings with reveal ties, buttress the scaffold, or run a freestanding or raking design that never touches the fabric. Scaffolding itself rarely needs listed building consent; the fixings and the work it serves can, and we agree the tie pattern before anything goes up.
Most domestic jobs run four to eight weeks — a re-roof two to four, a loft conversion or extension six to ten, repointing on a stone frontage longer again. The hire period is written into the quotation with erection and strike included, and if the work overruns we extend at a stated weekly rate rather than a surprise.
Anywhere in Oxfordshire, we will come and look at it before we price it.
01869 254017 info@oxscaffold.co.ukScaffolding Oxfordshire-wide from one yard is only practical because the county is compact: from Enslow, Kidlington and Woodstock are ten minutes, Bicester and Witney twenty-five, and the far corners — Henley, Wallingford, Chipping Norton — under an hour. Scaffolding hire in Oxfordshire works the same everywhere we go: a hire period in the quote, erection and strike included, an honest extension cost if the job runs on.
One thing is genuinely simpler here than in the counties around us. Oxfordshire County Council is the single highway authority for the whole county, so wherever the scaffold stands on a public footway — Banbury or Didcot, Thame or Carterton — the licence comes from the same place with the same rules, and it is billed monthly for the duration. The five districts (Oxford City, Cherwell, West Oxfordshire, South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse) handle planning and conservation separately, and that is where the differences between towns actually live.
Please feel free to contact us anytime to discuss your requirements.
Please feel free to contact us anytime to discuss your requirements. Or use the form below and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
We provide access solutions tailored to your requirements and have experience delivering on projects of considerable scale. Incorporated in 2018, Ox Scaffold Ltd have shown credibility within the industry and this was recognized by the Oxfordshire Prestige Awards from 2020 to present, winning ‘Oxfordshire’s Scaffold Company of the Year’.
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