THE next part of a key Oxford development is ‘disappointing’ and ‘fails to embrace’ walking and cycling, a city group has said.

The second phase of development at Barton Park is likely to be passed by city councillors next week. It will be built by Redrow.

The builder will complete 207 homes as part of Phase 3 of the project. A total of 885 homes will be eventually built at Barton Park.

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Oxford Civic Society said the next stage shows ‘a failure to genuinely embrace the principles of encouragement of walking and cycling as the preferred modes of travel’.

It says the ‘continued accommodation of private car transport as the design priority across the development’ is ‘disappointing’.

The On Foot in Oxford organisation said it ‘applauds the layout of Barton Park, with its pleasant greenways and linear park’.

But it added ‘there is a real issue over connectivity to the city centre and to the local employment and shopping area of Headington.’ It said that issue was ‘particularly significant’ for homes that will be built in Phase 3.

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Residents are already living in parts of the first phase, built by Hill. The Phase 2 and Phase 4 – called those because of the positions of land on the Barton Park site – will follow later.

Cycling groups Cyclox and Oxford City Cycling said space for bikes is ‘totally inadequate a development within a cycling city’.

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Forty per cent of all homes built at the next stage of Barton Park will be allocated as affordable – which equates to 83 homes.

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Despite the concerns, city council officers say the plan should be approved at a meeting of the authority’s East Area planning committee on Wednesday.

They say the development as planned would ‘help establish a balanced and mixed community’ and that the application has ‘demonstrated it would not have an adverse impact in highway safety terms’.

A main road would be built and run through the site, linking it with the A40 and other parts of Barton Park.

Other building might take place on land at Bayswater Brook, near Barton Park. Currently Bayswater Brook is in the Green Belt and is part of South Oxfordshire District Council’s Local Plan – but could be omitted soon.