Interview with the Warden - August 14th, 2025

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Thursday, 14 August 2025 10:18

The Highway 59 bridge in will reopen tomorrow.

OXFORD COUNTY - Some good news for those who take the Highway 59/Vansittart Ave bridge in the north end of Woodstock.

It has been down to one lane for quite some time now due to construction, but Warden Marcus Ryan says the bridge will reopen tomorrow and the intersection will become a four-way stop for the time being.

"The new lights have all been installed and they have all been connected, but just like anybody who does a large amount of electrical work, we are in line for an electrical inspection and for Hydro One to connect everything up. Even if you are Oxford County, you get in line for those people and you wait."

The bridge reconstruction project started in February, 2024. Along with some structural repairs, crews also installed a wider bridge deck so there's room for bike lanes and sidewalks. Warden Ryan says there's still some work to be done under the bridge, but it should not have any impact on traffic. You can read more about the bridge reconstruction project online here.

Warden Ryan is also getting ready for a trip Ottawa. He will be attending the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference next week and he's planning on discussing several matters with the provincial ministers. This includes the lack of child care spaces in our community.

"The province partially funds childcare spaces and we operate them with the province. We need more because Oxford County is one of the most underserved counties in southwestern Ontario for childcare spaces. We think we have a really good plan to implement more and we need the province to allocate. They piece them out around the province and we need them to give us more."

Warden Ryan will also like to try to remove some of the red tape farmers face if they want to use bio digesters to generate electricity. He says farmers currently have to work with three different ministries and follow five different regulatory frameworks if that is something they're interested in doing.

He's also going to push for more funding from the Homelessness Prevention Plan (HPP), to try to better address the homelessness situation in our community. Oxford received $2,922,000 in HPP funding for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, and again for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. During yesterday's County Council meeting, approved set aside $500,000 of this years funding for Community Outreach and Support Services to invite proposals focused on helping people transition out of homelessness. The remaining funds will be used for emergency shelter and supportive housing programs.

While appearing on the Heart FM morning show today, Warden Ryan also talked about the new Wasteline newsletter that has been released. It shines a light on some of the upcoming changes to waste collection in Oxford County, which include a green bin organics program and a new collection schedule.

The province has decided that producers will be responsible for recycling collection, which seems like a good idea on paper, but Warden Ryan is not a fan of how its being implemented.

"For a lot of people, there is a very high probability that you will have one collection day for your garbage and green bin, and a totally separate day for your recycling. We're trying to have as much communication as we can with the producers and the company that's going to be doing that collection to try and make it line up, but it is really outside of our control the way the province has done it."

The new Wasteline newsletter can be found online here.

You can listen to our full interview with Warden Marcus Ryan below: