Projects moving forward for Didcot Garden Town Advisory Board
Members of the Didcot Garden Town Advisory Board met last week to hear about the latest developments for Didcot Gateway and other key initiatives around the town. You can watch the meeting in full via https://youtu.be/QfXTrFSOKGo.
The board were updated on the district councils’ plan to build their new offices at Didcot Gateway, which will be located opposite the railway station. During the meeting Homes England’s proposal and online community engagement, which took place during this summer, to redevelop the Gateway area was discussed. The district councils are pleased to be working with Homes England to ensure the new councils’ offices provide an important part of the overall sustainable redevelopment of the site.
Members were updated on a range of initiatives, including plans for a new health centre and a county council led project to improve roads and cycle paths for the wider garden town area.
The board obtained feedback from councillors who had attended the first meeting of the Parish Council Sounding Board. The virtual session was chaired by Cllr Ian Hudspeth and was attended by eight parish councillors from the garden town’s surrounding villages. Their views on housing quality, maintaining green buffers between town and villages, transport links and infrastructure plans for residents living in more rural areas will be used to inform projects which will benefit the area.
Cllr Ian Hudspeth, Chair of Didcot Garden Town Advisory Board, “It’s a busy time for the garden town. The Sounding Boards have started with some valuable feedback and projects are beginning to get off the ground, the biggest being the redevelopment of Didcot Gateway. It’s a highly visible and strategic site for the area and having the district councils’ offices in the heart of the garden town demonstrates their commitment to helping to build sustainable garden communities.”
The Didcot Garden Town team will be engaging with local residents and businesses, through resident and business led Sounding Boards, which will provide further information on the projects with the opportunity to feedback on the new proposals.
If you’d like to hear more about the latest developments in Didcot Garden Town or are interested in joining one of the resident or business sounding boards, you can sign up to the latest newsletter here.