THE Front Garden is set to become an icon for housing developments across the country under plans announced by the deputy prime minister John Prescott.

There are hopes it will be as colourful and individual as Georgian Bath in its design.

The site is one of six in the country that will be built in a pioneering way as a pilot study.

The 4,500-home southern development area will be constructed under planning rules to ensure the new areas have a strong sense of character and identity.

Swindon's inclusion in a national pilot project was announced by Mr Prescott yesterday. The Front Garden will become the largest of the pilot areas.

A public consultation, carried out on behalf of developer Taylor Woodrow, to see what Swindon residents want from the new development suggests some of the newer areas in the town lack a distinctive identity.

It is hoped the new planning guidelines known as a design code will help avoid these pitfalls on the Front Garden.

Project organisers hope the code will eventually produce the kind of character that the Georgian city of Bath is regarded to have captured so successfully.

Under the code, which has yet to be finalised and will require the approval of Swindon councillors, houses will be built using common materials to a similar height and position. The design of the roofs and size of the windows will be specified, and the streets will be constructed in recgonisable patterns.

"It will be a detailed framework of how the place would be developed over a period of time," said project spokesman Charles St George.

"In some new estates people have said everywhere looks the same and it is easy to get lost."

Mr Prescott said: "The pilot scheme will test whether coding can accelerate the delivery of better quality places with the sort of well built, well designed homes that communities are so keen to see.

"High quality, well designed housing is vital to creating sustainable communities

"We must avoid the mistakes of the past and ensure homes are sympathetic to their local environment."

The other design coding pilots, announced in May, are in Aldershot, Ashford, Cirencester, Hastings, Newcastle and Rotherham.

The Southern Development Area team will be holding a community involvement day on September 8 at the Ellendune Hall, in Wroughton, from 10am until 8pm to reveal how the public can be involved.

Andy Tate