Electric Blanket Testing Witney: Free Checks on 8 October

Oxfordshire County Council is running free electric blanket safety checks again this autumn, and more than a third of the blankets brought to last year’s sessions failed. Of the 920 tested, 338 did not pass, a failure rate of 36.7 per cent, which the council says is up on the year before.

The nearest sessions to Witney are:

• Thursday 24 September: Chipping Norton, about 12 miles north of Witney
• Thursday 8 October: Witney

Both must be booked in advance. The county says the full address and a time slot are given when you book, so turning up on the day without an appointment is not guaranteed to get your blanket tested.

Where and when, across the county

Why a new blanket can still fail

The council’s own line is that age is not the test. Cllr Kate Gregory, the county’s cabinet member for public health and inequalities, said blankets and throws “might fail a safety assessment for many reasons, and even quite new blankets can fail”, and that a blanket left to deteriorate risks becoming faulty, “posing a danger of injury or fire”.

The county has run the checks free for 26 years.

What it means for you

If you own an electric blanket or a heated throw, this is a free way to find out whether it is safe before the heating season, and on last year’s figures there is better than a one in three chance it is not.

To book, use the county’s electric blanket testing page, call 01865 895999 and choose option three, or email duty.officer@oxfordshire.gov.uk. The council says the sessions are normally very popular and must be booked in advance to be guaranteed a slot.

Sources

• Think winter safety this summer: free electric blanket checks return, Oxfordshire County Council, 28 August 2026 for the dates, the 920 tests and 338 failures, the booking details and the quotations.