Himley Village Bicester

Local development should mean local jobs. Himley Village is a new community of up to 1,700 homes on Middleton Stoney Road in Bicester, as part of the North West Bicester Eco-Town. Across the full scheme, 85 construction apprenticeship opportunities are committed through the Section 106 Training and Employment Plan, alongside a commitment that every job vacancy, apprenticeship and supplier opportunity is advertised to Bicester residents first. Cala Homes (Chiltern) is building the first 500 homes, and delivers 18 of those apprenticeships across Phases 2A and 2B. Outline permission 14/02121/OUT, granted on 30 January 2020, covers the homes plus a retirement village, a primary school, a neighbourhood centre, sports pitches and open space. An energy centre forms part of the mixed use area and will come forward once an end user is found. It is a landscape led scheme, with a green grid of streets, allotments, an orchard and play areas. At the centre of the site is the Village Green, an area of open space that will include a NEAP, the largest category of equipped play area for children, with a design now being drawn up by the scheme landscape architects. Homes range from 2 to 5 bedrooms. Every home is gas free: air source heat pumps, solar PV, underfloor heating and electric vehicle charging, on a development targeting net zero operational carbon. That shapes the work on offer. Timber frame, solar, heat pumps and EV charging are the trades this build needs, and they are the trades the apprenticeships and local recruitment are built around. Schedule 8 of the Section 106 Agreement sets the Training and Employment Plan out in full. The 85 apprenticeship starts work out at 0.05 per home across the 1,700, phased as 6 in Phase 2A, which is live now, 12 in Phase 2B, 7 in Phase 2C and 60 in Phase 3. Phases 2A and 2B fall within the first 500 homes Cala is building, which is where its 18 starts sit. Every apprenticeship, job, training place and supply chain opportunity goes to residents in Bicester and within 5 miles first, then across Oxfordshire, then wider. The plan also commits the housebuilder to a local supplier database, two Meet the Buyer events per phase, promotion of home working, and an annual monitoring report to Cherwell District Council on the Enterprise Oxfordshire template. This site is where those commitments turn into something a Bicester resident can act on. It publishes the Section 106 targets and the progress made against them, lists every job, apprenticeship and training place in one searchable feed, holds the registered local supplier directory, and gives Cherwell District Council and Enterprise Oxfordshire a dated record of delivery from day one. Storey Consulting is the appointed Local Employment Coordinator and the single point of contact for the plan. Source: Himley Village Training and Employment Plan V4.0, June 2026; Cherwell District Council outline permission 14/02121/OUT; scheme detail confirmed by the Cala Homes (Chiltern) planning team, September 2026.