At a recent TransforMOTION event, held in London, local councils presented a futuristic vision alongside exhibits of Bosch UK’s latest innovations such as e-bikes, autonomous vehicles and pods.
This coincided with the council’s launch of its ‘Be in Science Vale’, a global campaign to highlight how being based in the area can bring benefits to space, life science and advanced engineering businesses and offering their workforce easy access to beautiful unspoilt countryside and first-rate leisure activities.
The Didcot Garden Town and Science Vale teams are working with Bosch UK, and other world leading innovators, to see how we can benefit from introducing new sustainable technology including commercially viable services.
The Councils presented a vision on how residents living in Didcot Garden Town and Science Vale UK could travel to nearby science and innovation campuses, such as Milton Park, Harwell Campus and Culham Science Centre, with new improved routes using various transport methods.
Science Vale UK has two enterprise zones and anticipates 20,000 new jobs being created with the level of investment currently planned. The garden town plans are ambitious and include 15,000 new homes to be built in the next 20 years, some of which will use the latest sustainable technology for their heat and power.
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Science Vale UK is a region in Southern Oxfordshire set up in 2009 to market the regions internationally acclaimed science and technology research and business location facilities.
It has been awarded two enterprise zones: Science Vale Oxford and the Didcot Growth Accelerator by governments in the past five years. These zones offer qualifying businesses up to £55,000 per year in Business Rate Discounts for five years when they move to a zone. The region has 216 hectares of enterprise zone development in and close to the town of Didcot.
The Science Vale UK partners are Culham Science Centre, Harwell Campus, Milton Park, Oxfordshire County Council, Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership and Science and Technology Facilities Council.
More information on Science Vale UK can be found at www.sciencevale.com
The Didcot Garden Town proposed plan and consultation was published on 19 June. The consultation finished on 31 July.
The final Didcot Garden Town plan is due to be published later this year.
Didcot Garden Town and surrounding area is set to accommodate over 15,000 new houses and the Science Vale region is expected to create 20,000 new jobs in the next 20 years.