Didcot Garden Town – updates

Latest news:

Didcot Nature Trail

The wonderful Didcot Nature Trail is now available for everyone to find out more about the local area. Head out by foot and learn more about the diverse natural world around us.

You can find out more and download the nature trail map here.

Didcot Garden Town Advisory Board

Our advisory board online meeting took place on Monday 21 October to go through the garden town projects with our members and you can see our latest programme tracker that we presented at the meeting here.

Leisure Facilities Assessment and Strategy

The councils have approved a new Leisure Facilities Assessment Strategy (LFAS), which provides an audit of the quality, quantity and accessibility of leisure facilities, as well as the current and future use of the facilities. The LFAS has assessed the key sports and leisure facilities within the South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district areas, including throughout Didcot. This includes sports halls, swimming pools, activity halls, health and fitness suites, squash courts, water sports facilities, skateparks, multi-use games areas and climbing walls.

The Playing Pitch Strategy

The councils have also adopted a new The Playing Pitch Strategy, which provides an audit of the quality, quantity, and accessibility of playing pitches (including cricket, football, hockey, rugby and other pitches) to establish the current levels of demand and the appropriate level of pitch provision that can be planned for the future.

You can find out more information on both the above strategies here.

Project update

We’ve had the following projects approved:

Green Infrastructure Strategy – this new strategy will help 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 new route between Mowbray Fields to the new Valley Park development.

Download our Green Infrastructure Strategy

Wayfinding Strategy – 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.

Download our Wayfinding Strategy

Our Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (otherwise known as an LCWIP) for Didcot has now been approved by Oxfordshire County Council as the local highways authority. The plan sets out where improvements can be made to cycling paths and walkways to help encourage everyone to get around the town. You can read the report below and if you’d like a copy of any appendices, please contact us and we’ll send over a copy.

Download our LCWIP report

We produce a newsletter to keep you up to date on what’s happening in and around the garden town. Here’s o ur latest newsletter we sent out in September.

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:

Didcot Garden Town case study

Since becoming a garden town in 2017 we’ve been working with partners to help improve the lives of everyone living in and around the town.

In partnership with Homes England, we are pleased to share a Didcot Garden Town case study that shows how we’ve helped develop strategies and plans for the town, how we overcome challenges over the past six years and what we’ve learnt along the way.

Didcot Wildlife Garden Charter

We’ve partnered with Sustainable Didcot to help highlight a Didcot Wildlife Garden Charter to encourage everyone to pledge to help the wildlife thrive in their own garden.

With just a few simple steps you can help create green corridors to help enhance the biodiversity in the local area. You can get involved by visiting Sustainable Didcot’s website.

Other projects:

Broadway photography Quiz

You may have noticed we’ve put some fabulous new images (above) on the hoardings in front of 116-120 Broadway. Take part in our quiz and see how many plants you can name.

An image of the On Your Doorstep map. — **Click on the image to download the map**

On your Doorstep walking map available

We’ve worked together with Didcot Town Council, local parish councils, community groups and centres to create a ‘On your Doorstep’ map of interesting things. This beautiful map illustrates some of art works, trails and cultural and historical places in and around Didcot Garden Town. You can also pick up a paper copy at Cornerstone in Didcot.