Didcot Garden Town – updates

Latest news:

Didcot Garden Town Advisory Board

The last Didcot Garden Town Advisory Board meeting was on 20 April, April agenda (PDF). The updates shared during the meeting in the Didcot Garden Town programme – SMART Dashboard can be viewed here (PDF). During the January meeting we went through the garden town projects with our members and you can see the January meeting notes here (PDF).

April 2026 – Latest news on Great Western Park GP Surgery

NHS Thames Valley has published an update on their aims to deliver a new GP surgery in Didcot. Find out the latest news on their website under ‘Improving our estates’ and ‘Great Western Park Didcot’ page.

We produce a newsletter to keep you up to date on what’s happening in and around the garden town. Click here for our latest Winter 2026 newsletter.

If you’d like to sign up and receive our newsletters to find out more about the exciting projects planned for the town – register for updates by pressing the button below:

Project updates:

Routes: Cow Lane Connecting Communities Art Project

We were delighted to receive funding from Great Western Railway’s Community Investment Fund and further funding from UK Shared Prosperity Fund to progress the Cow Lane art project from our Didcot Public Art Plan.

The project comprises of two strands. Strand one, working with artist Raphael Daden is an outdoor gallery leading between Cow Lane and Didcot Parkway. Strand two, working with Pixel Puppets artists Helen Brook and Ben Carlin who are creating a lighting intervention using colour and pattern to reanimate Cow Lane underpass.

The Cow Lane Connecting Communities Project will transform the underpass to make it a safer, more welcoming and visually appealing route connecting the town centre and green spaces to the north of Didcot and the railway station.

** From Sunday 7 to Wednesday 10 June 2026, Cow Lane underpass will be
undergoing essential cleaning, maintenance, repairs and some new installations. These
improvements will help to create a brighter, safer and more welcoming route for everyone. The
works will take place between the hours of 9.30am and 3.30pm each day, on Sunday it will be
closed completely during these hours, but from Monday 8 June through to Wednesday it will
be open to pedestrian and cycling traffic only. It will be closed to vehicles during these
hours and an alternative route will be available **

Healthy Didcot

Members of the Steering Group, and interested parties, have been working collaboratively to provide information on projects they have been working on and the programmes they will be doing or would like to do in the future. This data and the recommendations have been fed into an Action Plan to help identify partners and organisations that can work together to address the identified health inequalities for some residents.

The Action Plan is a live document that is evolving under the leadership of the multi-agency steering group.

Thank you to all our Didcot community partners who have co -produced the Healthy Didcot Action Plan with us, creating a resource and platform to recognise, grow and support all the incredible health focused work being delivered in Didcot presently and in the future. Key priorities in the Action Plan include communication and development, wellbeing, health and built and maintained environments, using the Didcot Community Health Insight recommendations to focus the work.

To contribute to the Action Plan with Health and Wellbeing work in Didcot complete the Healthy Didcot Template and return to didcotgardentown@southandvale.gov.uk

Healthy Didcot Reports

Healthy Didcot Action Plan

Community Insight Report

Stakeholder engagement Report

Resident Survey

Wayfinding

We’ve been working on providing new signage around the town to help new and existing residents to find the wide and varied walkways and cycle paths in Didcot. This year we hope to install new information boards, signage posts, community information boards and way-markers along paths and roads in Didcot. The wayfinding scheme is has been based on the Wayfinding Strategy, which was approved by the councils’ Cabinet last year.

Download our Wayfinding Strategy

Wayfinding toolkit – our contractors have put together a toolkit to help developers and others to introduce their own wayfinding scheme using the same designs and principles that we’ve used in Didcot. Here’s a link to the wayfinding toolkit for all the signage.

Green Infrastructure

Our Green Infrastructure Strategy is helping us to create detailed designs on how we can improve the biodiversity along walkways and cycle paths in and around Didcot and help to develop a better routes between Mowbray Fields to Great Western Park.

Download our Green Infrastructure Strategy