Reading’s Re-purposeful Replanning

Reading-On-Thames, , ,
Grid of four aerial photos of sites listed for redevelopment

Since my last round-up article, there are two updates of particular note. Of more popular interest, news on the Oracle has emerged, and perhaps of wider consequence, a new update to the council’s longer-term local plan is out for consultation. The link between the two is a prevailing direction of repurposing land from retail and office to residential and leisure.

Oracle lower storey site map

Retail -> Leisure

The Oracle’s letting agent published a revised floor plan a few weeks ago, which I saw on another forum. It shows the bottom floor of the former House of Fraser as a tenpin bowling centre. Hollywood Bowl have now kindly confirmed that they are signed up for the whole of that level. It will be January 2025 before they can begin their fit-out, as the mall’s owner Hammerson will be taking the next year to fully split up and refurbish the 25 year-old department store building. The bowling famine, though, will end sooner with Bowl Central opening in the old Dawson’s music shop in June – fitting out to start in January. At last the inexplicable family leisure vacuum is being filled, with the Broad Street Mall in on the act as well with their arcades complex in the former New Look. Hopefully further leisure-led schemes can follow, and retail can benefit from the additional visitors.

Oracle middle storey site map

Retail -> Residential

The same floor plan shows TK Maxx taking the middle level of House of Fraser. This would presumably be subject to the same 2025 timelines, so another Christmas left to trade at the Broad Street Mall. At least a portion of their current unit fronting Hosier Street is subject to the mall’s residential scheme of 600 build-to-rent apartments, so this might be a forced relocation on their part. Retail land converting to residential is nothing new, with a similar number of apartments now filling up on the site of the old C&A-anchored mall on Friar Street.

I’m hopeful the Broad Street Mall can retain a significant retail gravity, supported by the apartment schemes along the edges. One potential tenant they might have their eyes on is Matalan. The Reading Link retail park just south of the town centre is one of the latest sites put forward by its owner in the new local plan. Although before we get too carried away with these new site allocation proposals, it’s worth bearing a couple of points in mind: firstly the plan is for a period up to 2036, and secondly, any plans would be subject to the lengthy planning permission process over and above being accepted as a notionally acceptable use of the land in this planning policy consultation. But nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that further retail floorspace will be ceded to residential, especially single-storey sheds within walking distance of the town centre. And if popular retailers can be re-homed within regeneration schemes, then it’s a very pragmatic trend to see continue.

Aerial view of Acquis house

Office -> Residential

A number of existing office buildings have been put forward by their owners for redevelopment or refitting to residential. Aquis House has long stood out with its large surface car park wasting a prime chunk of town centre real estate. A building on Blagrave Street must be within the same ownership, with a 10 storey L-shaped scheme envisaged within the plan period.

The former tax office at Sapphire Plaza – the blue glazed building in the middle of the Kings Road one-way system – is also up for redevelopment. The general question as to whether to knock down and start again or convert is considered by the proposed policy update. But we have many competing policy aims put forward, specifically:

  • build on brownfield sites rather than greenfield
  • build more homes, some 800+ per year seemingly being the latest government mandate
  • build more 3 bedroom family homes rather than just small apartments
  • build at greater density (to achieve the above)
    but…
  • build more energy efficiency
  • refit rather than demolish where possible, on environmental grounds
  • don’t change the 11-storey height limit (aside from Station Hill)
  • more affordable housing

Also nominated is the former Prudential building that replaced Huntley and Palmer. Here conversion of the existing building (now known as Kennet Place) is indicated. But that only gets you a proposed 70 apartments, whereas the Sapphire Plaza (& Royal Court) proposed allocation is for up to 400 homes – presumably a full site redevelopment.

Aerial view of Norman Place

An opportunity looks to be coming forward for improvement to the outlook of the town from the Thames. The Covea/MMA insurance building is proposed for a residential regeneration, as is the dated Reading Bridge House. The environmental credentials of new build energy efficiency may be played off against the impact of demolition. The plan proposes a mandate:

“where major demolition is required, applicants should be required to divert 95% of construction waste away from landfill, as recommended in the London Plan”

With the housing targets and land supply as they are, and with height restrictions and a desire for larger units and affordable housing, it’s hard to see all of these ageing office buildings along the Thames and Kennet surviving the wrecking ball. But with that should be a positive opportunity to demand the highest quality buildings and vibrant street-level amenities for residents and visitors alike. But the council wants your opinion – consultation and drop-in events are advertised here, so why not share your views. How would you square the circle of those various policy aims?

Full list of town centre sites newly proposed for residential or mixed use schemes:

  1. Aquis House and 33 Blagrave Street
  2. Reading Central Library, Abbey Square
  3. John Lewis Depot, Mill Lane
  4. Crowne Plaza Reading, Richfield Avenue
  5. Norman Place (Covea)
  6. Reading Bridge House
  7. Tesco Extra, Napier Road (eastern portion of car park)
  8. Kennet Place, Kings Road
  9. Sapphire Plaza and Royal Court, Kings Road
  10. Reading Link Retail Park

What do you think? Comments are always very welcome with no registration required…

Reading’s Re-purposeful Replanning

31 thoughts on “Reading’s Re-purposeful Replanning”

      1. Anonymous says:

        Dear god before long Reading will be devoid of any retail outlets and shops and just packed with more and more people from outside living in hutches and diluting every possible service there is. Services that are never expanded to cope with these massive increases in population.
        We are at the mercy of greedy developers aided and abetted by useless planners who can see no further than their council coffers.

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  4. Anonymous says:

    What’s the reasoning to keep with the 11-storey height limit? Can see the need for space and better to have some visual variety to the skyline (great content as usual!)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I think twofold. Taller proposals attract more negative feedback: general anti-change arguments plus more legitimate heritage concerns. And secondly having the limit means they can choose to permit taller developments but have the policy back up to be demanding on quality by having sound excuse to refuse.
      I should have added the old civic site and Broad St Mall area is allocated for a small number of >11 storey buildings. And I’m unclear whether the library site might also be allocated similarly.
      But personally I do agree with you that that seems the obvious constraint to loosen.

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  7. Anonymous says:

    Will any of these fancy blocks of flats include corner shops, doctors and dentists surgeries, playgrounds, community halls, and other essential services? What happens when (not IF!) some of them deteriorate into slums in 20 years?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  8. Anonymous says:

    Am very much in favour of converting office blocks to housing. With more people working from home, it’s far more efficient to have folks living in the town centre than sprawling further out. It’s greener and it will, eventually, promote a healthier town cultural scene.

    It’s underappreciated but there’s a lot of younger folk moving out of London to Reading to buy their first house/apartment. Those are the sort of people that drive cultural engagement, they want places to go, things to do. They have leisure time and disposable income.
    They eventually turn into families, and want more space. 3/4/5 bed apartments are perfectly normal in most of continental europe so these folk don’t have to move to a suburb. If they’re accommodated in the centre of town, it’ll help massively in the provision of good quality housing without destroying the countryside. Glad to see there’s a focus on it by the council.

    3 main things needed:
    – Better high density transport, it’s time to start looking at trams (or god help us, an actual underground, lots of smaller cities in Europe like Rennes, Granada, Cadiz have them…) to enable the movement of people in dense living environments.
    – A plan to give these folks things to do and ensure that a positive, not negative culture is created (as the latter could become a huge policing problem)
    – Public services, GP & Dental surgeries, nurseries, schools, etc… Presumably possible within Section 106/CIL payments.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
      1. Anonymous says:

        Is bringing the tram system back to Reading a credible possibility? I’m all for it on heritage grounds, but I always assumed putting back the destroyed transport infrastructure would be expensive and impractical after we only switched to trolleybuses fifty-odd years ago…

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      2. We’re probably some way down the pecking order for government funds in that respect, given Bristol, Leeds etc have no mass transit. Some kind of shuttle from Thames Valley Park to the station via Napier Road would be the most viable route, but ironically likely opposed by environmentalists

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      3. Anonymous says:

        People are rightly saying more doctors surgeries are needed. But these are not a great help without doctors and nurses in them.
        The number of doctors being trained has been capped for about a decade now (to save money / lower taxation) and instead we import many doctors and nursing staff. But this then directly conflicts with a desire to reduce immigration.
        If any government succeeds in reducing immigration numbers that will imply reducing GP numbers below where they are today.
        I only raise this because whilst politicians continue to ignore these conflicts in their policies it will continue to get harder to see a doctor.
        A solution to the shortage of GP’s needs calm and informed debate and non political consensus on the way forward.

        Liked by 1 person

  10. Anonymous says:

    It’s good to see the housing issue is being addressed, however where are the schools, Doctors, Dentist and other essential amenities? The current service can’t cope and there will be 1000s of people needing this services. What provision will there be for young people. The are lots of complaints about teenagers hang around, where are they meant to go?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  11. Anonymous says:

    Fascinating round-up as always. I’m interested to see what becomes of the Central Library. I never liked the building, though my elderly neighbour loves it — but then again I like hardly any buildings built after 1914. The library itself is screaming from regeneration and I hope the civic site provides it. My vote for the Central Library site is for a Reading heritage coffee shop, bookshop and creche all rolled into one, with events in the evening for the youngsters. A more mainstream Rising Sun in the middle of town

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    1. Thank you for the kind feedback. The old library is likely to be sold for residential, and it’s been pointed out to me that that site is actually in the tall building zone. I guess as a council owned site we “own” it so getting some money to invest elsewhere might be acceptable. The kind of venue you propose might be best incorporated into the town hall or civic centre. Or even the churches similar to the Greyfriars recent addition

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  12. Anonymous says:

    Thanks for the article. I work in one of the buildings mentioned. We went from a floor with about 200 workers to between 8 and 25 on the busiest day. Obviously not a sustainable position.

    But an 11 story height limit across a large part of central reading seems far too much. I am a fan of well designed urbanism and appreciate how well some European cities do it. City livability seems to be very hard to get right. Central Paris has density with quite a low building height limit, Barcelona’s superblocks have apparently helped tame the car.

    I have seen how Vancouver has retained views of the mountains and tree cover with clever planning laws. They also amended leaseholding laws many years ago giving residents more control over their buildings. Clean public transport via underground and trolley buses makes a big difference. There are many good aspects to this ‘Vancouverism’ but they have a concept of the ‘Grand bargain’ which is where all the new residential development is pushed into small areas typically along noisy corridors allowing single family home areas to remain untouched. These plans are in that direction. More residential towers along Napier road would seem to make sense. But we need to be thinking more in terms of mid-rise mixed use and family homes in addition to so many new towers.

    The Grand Bargain, Illustrated

    Reading also suffers a bit I think from office sprawl with Green park, Thames Valley park and the new Uni science park. This generates lots of cross town travel that is not suited to public transport. I really hope the hospital is not pushed out towards the motorway.

    RMTransit – Worst type of urban sprawl – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrifjkEXvnY

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  13. Really interesting. Thank you for sharing those links too.
    I agree there’s definitely a “grand bargain”, or political element to the areas coming forward.
    At some point in the future it might be worth looking at one of the industrial areas to the south or west of town for a well planned “rezoning”, to use the north American term in your article. But for now it’s the town centre shouldering the burden.

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  14. Anonymous says:

    The Thames Water office in Clearwater Court will be developed at some point. It’s recently changed hands and the new owners have given Thames Water notice to evict in 2035. Thames Water too are under utilising the space and looking at options to sublet

    Liked by 1 person

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