A PENSIONER from Headington has inspired a new website that helps people find odd job men.

Julia Colwell is 74 and needs help with heaving lifting, cleaning and other day-to-day jobs.

Her son, former Cheney School pupil Robert Colwell lives in London so can’t always be on hand to help out.

Inspired by his mother’s problems finding a spare pair of hands, the 49-year-old hopes oddjobscentre.com will help residents find handymen who in turn will be able to find work.

He said: “A couple of years ago my dad died and my mum was looking for different jobs she wanted doing. “There was only so much she could do. “She was looking for other people to help her and finding it quite expensive.

“I started looking round for a website that might be able to find people who could help.”

Mr Colwell’s day job is as the joint founder of Ecoinomy, a firm which encourages companies to incentivise employees by donating to charity. The new site launched this week and invites users to post what they need and what they will pay. Others can search and pitch for work.

Jobs advertised so far include garden fence mending, putting together an IKEA kitchen sideboard and mending a leaking conservatory. Though he said he put in £10,000 of his own cash, Mr Colwell said: “I don’t want it to become a commercial thing. I would rather see how it develops for the community.

“In the way eBay created a perfect website by selling what people are prepared to pay for them, I want to do the same for services.”

Like eBay, users can leave feedback about the service they receive to help prospective customers.

He said he hopes the website will not only help recession-hit residents earn cash, but would appeal to students looking for holiday work.

His mother, of Green Ridges, Headington, said the website will be a great help since her husband Bryan died in January 2010 aged 80.

She said: “It is excellent. My husband was always a handyman, if anything ever went wrong he could always mend it.

“Rob is always working and there have been jobs I have wanted doing. Just to be able to pick up a phone and say to somebody ‘can you do so and so’ is such a good idea.”

ON THE SITE

Jobs advertised on oddjobscentre.com include: (cash is the money being offered for the job)

  • Busy mum needs help sewing in name tags for three children – £20.
  • Mechanic needed to help change car battery – £20.
  • Need to borrow electric guitar for studio session – £100
  • Man with disloctated arm “desperately” needs someone to write a dictated letter – £20.00.
  • Delivery of suitcases to Manchester – £10.
  • House sitter needed for a weekend – £100.