Nature: Barton Park, Oxford

A large suburban neighbourhood is being built to the north-east of Oxford. The 36-hectare site will accommodate 885 new homes, of which 354 will be socially rented. The development will include facilities to serve the new and existing communities, such as a primary school, community facilities and a food store.

Barton Park is conceived as a garden suburb – a community set within parkland, to form a distinctive urban edge to Oxford. A semi-natural landscaping strategy comprises allotments, sustainable travel greenways, retention and expansion of existing hedgerows and trees, linear parks, a scattering of small neighbourhood pocket parks and a communal nature garden.