BUCKET loads of community spirit helped make the fifth 'activities week' in Didcot the best yet.

Bringing together the hundreds of families who now live in Great Western Park, the week gave residents the opportunity to get involved with everything from climbing walls to bouncy castles.

Josie Midwinter, who coordinated the first two activities weeks, said: "It is encouraging to see that during this fifth activities week our foundations of 2013 are still there but have also grown.

"We now have support from the sports pavilion, the Army and various professional people who do children’s activities locally and have given their time either at a reduced rate or for free.

"Great Western Park is now about 2,000 houses and we now see the shops, the pub the UTC [university technical college] and schools up and running.

"It is encouraging to see that along with this growth has been a real sense of community and we hope that in the future the new [community and sports] centres will be willing to support this."

From its humble beginnings back in 2013 when just 300 houses had been built in Great Western Park, the event has grown to 1,900 residents attending the various activities.

It was initially set up to help residents get to know one another and had just three events: a playbus on Monday, fun in the park on Tuesday and craft activities at Stephen Freeman School on Wednesday.

This year it ran from July 31 to August 4.

Ms Midwinter said: "It was also a co-operative between Church Together in Didcot, Soha Housing, the school and the residents association.

"We were determined to make it a joint venture so that everyone in the community could feel confident that it was representative of those who were living on Great Western Park."

To take part in any of the activities on offer, residents were asked to give a donation of a £1 per person.

Minister at Great Western Park Church and the main organiser of last week's array of activities, Mark Bodeker, said it was a fantastic opportunity to bring everyone together.

He said: "It is so important that as our town grows we do not lose that core, most important thing, which is community spirit.

"We hope this will just keep continuing for years to come."

A barbecue was held on Tuesday night, organised by the residents' association, in the hope of raising money for a defibrillator on the estate.