Project
Woodstock North
Year
2020–current
Client
Blenheim Estate
Number of homes
430
Local authority
Oxfordshire County Council
Featuring Parking Barns, Passivhaus-standard homes and green living rooms for residents and locals alike, the schemes, for Blenheim Estate, demonstrate how to overcome the challenges of building in rural locations.
The proposals for Hill Rise (180 homes) and Banbury Road (250 homes) on the fringes of Woodstock are based on the council’s Local Plan 2031.
These new multi-generational, energy-efficient neighbourhoods blend sympathetically with the countryside, with new green spaces accommodating local wildlife and natural features, alongside allotments, orchards and places to play, sit and relax. Half of all homes are affordable and are laid out on traditional streets, many of which are car free.
Local bus routes and cycle networks will pass through both sites and while there will still be room for cars (every home has a parking space) they will be less visible, grouped into nearby small squares, dotted throughout the neighbourhood.
The most striking feature of the development are the parking barns which will cater for any additional cars. The barns are no more than a couple of minutes’ walk from new homes and provide secure indoor off-street parking and charging for resident’s additional cars and other vehicles. Drawing their look from local farm buildings, they can be easily adapted for other community needs as car use changes in years to come.
What this also means is whereas car infrastructure typically takes up 40 per cent in new residential developments, in Hill Rise and Banbury Road it’s closer to 14 per cent.
The green living rooms for both sites also demonstrate how to sensitively build on rural land, providing well-being and health living infrastructure, including new paths and cycle ways, and communal food-growing gardens.
Banbury Road was granted planning in December 2022 with Hill Rise approved in November 2023 on appeal. The appeal found that Hill Rise was in ‘accord with Section 12 of the NPPF which seeks to achieve well-designed places that ‘function well, are visually attractive, sympathetic to local character and history, establish or maintain a strong sense of place, and create places that are safe, inclusive and accessible.’
We had a refreshingly unusual brief; to imagine a different relationship with private cars. The resulting dramatic change from car-shaped roads to landscaped sociable streets hints at what we could deliver if this cultural shift could be embraced more widely.”
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PTE partner and project masterplanner Alexis Butterfield
