The Market Street Party in full swing! This vibrant shot captures traders, performers, and city teams celebrating the original completion of the Market Street trial project. Surrounded by new planters and benches, the transformed space has since gone on to win Best Infrastructure Project at the ICE South East Engineering Excellence Awards.
The main photo shows last year’s Market Street Party, hosted to celebrate the original completion of the trial makeover project. Traders, performers and city teams gathered around the new benches and planters that transformed this historic entrance into a greener, more welcoming gateway to Oxford’s Covered Market—now officially award-winning after scooping Best Infrastructure Project at the ICE South East Engineering Excellence Awards.Two photos below show the street from two angles just after completion.

Market Street Revamp Scoops Top Engineering Award

We’re thrilled to share that Market Street’s makeover has just won Best Infrastructure Project (under £5m) at the ICE South East Engineering Excellence Awards!

Four of our nine public entrances to our historic Covered Market are on Market Street so it’s is a key part of our world – and it’s never looked better.

We love how this transformation has made the street greener, calmer, and more inviting. It now has the feeling of being less of the back of the market more of an inviting way to enter the Market for a relaxed lunch, after-work hangout or a spot of shopping.

Congratulations to ODS, Urban Movement, Civic Engineers and Meristem Design for bringing the vision to life to an award winning standard.

The changes are still being trialled – but we’re hopeful they’ll become a permanent part of city life this autumn.