COUNCIL workers downed tools to take part in a Christmas fun run around Christ Church Meadow yesterday.

Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council sometimes have a frosty relationship – but that didn’t put 100 runners off.

The race winner and organiser, Julian Richardson, said the two-and-a-half mile run has become ‘an institution’ among the councils’ staff since first being held in 1979.

A county council engineer, Mr Richardson, 50, said: “It’s a way of celebrating working together. It’s more than just meeting up.”

The Oxford City club runner clocked a time of 12 minutes 17 seconds.

Another county council employee, Sue Cozens, was the fastest woman, running it in 17 minutes and seven seconds.