Thomas White Oxford, the development company of St John’s College, selected Hill Group as the development partner to build out 3.5 hectares of land at Canalside, the west area of the site south of the A40.

This part of the site will deliver the first phase of over 200 new homes, both market and affordable, for the new life sciences district.

The new life sciences district in Oxford will ultimately see around 1m sq ft of laboratories and offices, nearly 500 homes small shops, bars and restaurants, hotel, circa 23 acres of open spaces including three new parks.

Local planners have just backed the 64-acre outline masterplan and given detailed consent for the Central area, which will consist of 140,000 sq ft of laboratories and office space in three buildings along with a new public park.

Hill will now join TWO in the ongoing discussions with Oxford City Council for detailed planning permission to deliver the much-needed new homes at the Canalside area of the multi-phase scheme.

Andy Hill, chief executive, Hill Group, said: “We are delighted to be joining Thomas White Oxford to deliver the new homes at Canalside at the new, landmark life sciences district of Oxford North.

“We bring 20 years’ experience in placemaking and residential development project delivery, combined with our local market knowledge and recent work at Mosaics, Oxford.”

William Donger, director, Thomas White Oxford said: “We selected Hill as our development partner from a wide range of responses to our residential partner search due to their national housebuilder experience, knowledge of the local area and their strong sustainability credentials.

“They will be delivering the exciting first phase of new homes for the life sciences community which we will be curating.”