OX Place has been given planning permission to build 15 new affordable homes in Northway.

Designed by Oxford Architects LLP, Oxford City Council’s housing company intends to build a single L-shaped block on Westlands Drive. The new homes will be a mixture of townhouses, flats and maisonettes ranging from one to four bedrooms.

Built in brick, the three-storey block will respect the scale of existing buildings on Westlands Drive and provide a modern aesthetic in line with newer developments in the area.

All 15 homes will be adaptable to cope with people’s changing needs throughout their lives. Eleven of the new homes will be council homes, with six let at social rent and five let at affordable rent. The remaining four homes will be sold for shared ownership.

Westlands Drive will be a low-car development, with two wheelchair-accessible parking spaces and communal storage for 28 bikes for people living in flats, and all houses will have their own bike spaces.

All OX Place developments take a ‘fabric first approach’, with enhanced insulation and air tightness standards that maximise energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. The Westlands Drive development will have air source heat pumps for heating and hot water and a mechanical extract ventilation system. Together, these mean that Westlands Drive is set to achieve a 66% improvement on government carbon reduction.

OX Place will provide bird nesting and bat roosting sites, with bug hotels across the development to help enhance biodiversity.

We look forward to developing this project further with our design team: CBG consultants as Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, Stantec as Structural and Civil Engineers, and AtkinsRéalis as Cost Consultants.