Didcot Garden Town – updates
Latest news:
Healthy Didcot UKSPF Funding report
Through UKSPF funding, Healthy Didcot has supported thousands of local residents, helping over 10,000 people take part in activities across the town. The programme has also supported 29 groups and projects and enabled nine partner organisations to deliver local initiatives. View the Healthy Didcot UKSPF Report to learn more about the programme’s impact and achievements. The PDF version of the report is also available to view here.
Didcot Garden Town Community Event
Thank you to everyone that came along to our latest Community Update meeting on Wednesday 30 September at Harwell Village Hall. If you came along to our event and didn’t get a chance to fill in one of our feedback forms while you were with us, you can fill one out online – Community Update Meeting 30 September feedback form. The survey is open until 11.59pm on Wednesday 14 October.
Didcot Garden Town Advisory Board
The last Didcot Garden Town Advisory Board meeting was on 20 July. During the meeting, we went through the garden town projects with our members. You can see the latest information on the Didcot Garden Town programme – SMART Dashboard here (PDF).
The next Didcot Garden Town meeting is on 19 October. If you would like to join the meeting as a viewing participant, please email didcotgardentown@southandvale.gov.uk by 12 October.
July 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.
Newsletter
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 Summer 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:
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.
The installation of the new wayfinding signage will start on Monday 7 September 2026.
The map below shows where the signage will go:
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.
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 (click the arrow to open the reports)
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 Second Nature Stuido (formerly Pixel Puppets) artists Helen Brook and Ben Carlin who are creating a lighting intervention using colour and pattern to reanimate Cow Lane underpass.
In June essential cleaning, maintenance and repair work took place at the Cow Lane underpass. The site was cleared of rubbish, overgrown trees and shrubs, weeded and new lighting was installed by Oxfordshire County Council.
However, due to unforeseen circumstances the installation of The Cow Lane Connecting Communities Artwork didn’t happen at the same time as planned. We will keep this page updated with the latest news on this project.
You can find out more about the first stage of this project at Didcot Parkway Station (which took place in February 2026) in our press release.
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.
Find out more about Didcot Garden Town projects by by visiting our partner websites
Contact us - Didcot Garden Town
01235 422473
(Text phone users add 18001 before dialling)
South Oxfordshire District Council
Abbey House
Abbey Close
Abingdon
OX14 3JE
