This week saw new proposals exhibited for 260 apartments at Norman Place, an empty office building on Vastern Road fronting the Thames. I’ll take you through the latest proposal, which is also published online for feedback directly to the developer.

Reading’s north-of-station office cluster is certainly on the retreat. This is no surprise given the ageing buildings, work-from-home, and the investment in vast new space at Station Hill where imminent lettings are highly rumoured. Great Brigham’s Mead is vacant with apartment conversion planned, the old SSE offices have consent for new flats, there’s Napier Court, and recently we heard that Reading Bridge House has been put forward in the local planning process for residential redevelopment.

We’re not left with much – most prominently Thames Water’s HQ, named somewhat ironically Clearwater Court. The utility company has emerged as a pantomime villain in recent years. The council is currently lambasting them on service outages, making a change from leaks or roadworks. If not, it’s folk from Henley, where everyone retires at fifty and starts jumping in the river every morning, coming over to protest about swimming in Reading’s sewage. However, they turned up the same day as anti war protestors. A henchman peers around a curtain on the top floor to view the placards below – ‘From the river to sea’:
“Er, Sir, these people have come to protest in favour of our sanitation policy”
“Excellent Smithers”
The poor Henley mermaids head home with their tails between their legs. If that’s anatomically possible.

The riverbank also suffered a huge flood this year. Although Thames Water would quickly divert attention to the Environment Agency, whose little office is literally hiding behind Reading Bridge House. After having cancelled their plans for a flood relief scheme along this stretch, if their own office flooded it really would be a subject of national mockery. I would not be surprised to see them follow the trend and vacate for redevelopment. So that just leaves us with one major office building, here at Norman Place.

The logic for residential use along this stretch holds water, if that’s not an unfortunate choice of words given recent events. Some argue it’s flats with which we are inundated, but this area has easy access to plenty of open space, whilst being right by the station and town centre facilities. Density centrally saves green fields out of town. However, it’s important to keep employment opportunities in the town centre too, and I am still of the view that somewhere along here would make an ideal location for a conference / exhibition centre to boost the commercial appeal of the town – perhaps the sorting office site might yet be an option with previous plans for flats seemingly stalled.

The design of the scheme is essentially a three-sided perimeter block, broken up into multiple buildings through creative changes in angles, heights and roof styles. The central private courtyard sits above ground floor amenities and limited parking. The talking point of the exhibition was the new public terrace in front of the river, with ideas invited by post-it note. There is space allocated for one or maybe two commercial units facing the river spilling out onto the new raised area. One popular option seemed to be a cycle repair café. Maybe the second unit could be an American-themed diner with a vintage Cadillac for seating and Gulf Oil signs throughout – that way we could have both cohorts from the Reading Chronicle comments section face off in the physical world. Or perhaps a riverside pub might do the trick and everyone could just share a drink together?

Personally, I’d like to see us celebrate the Thames frontage a little more. Whilst Reading started as a Kennet-side town, it’s grown to become a Thames-side city, and if we started over surely we’d have put some major civic buildings along the Thames – a mini South Bank perhaps. Instead, we ended up with the back of a bunch of offices – a collective boiler exhaust outlet for a growing town. I accept the tone is set – this isn’t The Oracle riverside, but if we can plant a few trees, widen the path for cycling and still have space for a little pub/restaurant garden then why not? It would supplement the small café planned at the SSE site at the end of the new footbridge to Caversham. Whether the space and the aspect suits is another matter, but some kind of enlivening of the area is a welcome opportunity.

Extending the point on celebrating the river frontage, perhaps they could do slightly more on the building design here. They’re caught between trying not to offend, and creating something more positively eye-catching – which in fairness to Thames Water, Clearwater Court does well. The pitched roofs are perhaps slightly evocative of older industrial buildings that occupied this site in days gone by, but even those may face removal in favour of more solar panels in further revisions. Let’s hope as more detail emerges we see a high quality waterfront building come forward.

The circa 260 apartments would be build-to-rent and operated by Packaged Living, who are also partnering with The Oracle on their plans that are currently undergoing some revisions. It’s still unclear around specifics on split between smaller and larger flats, and affordable housing. Both topics tend to feature prominently in discussions with the council as the authority tries to encourage a greater amount of larger accommodation that is suitable for families.

A growing number of environmental considerations factor into the plans. The removal of the existing building has to be justified, and recycling of its materials. But the new building will be greener with the purpose-built advantages that pure office-to-residential conversions struggle to achieve.

What do you think of the plans? Does the idea float your boat? Or do you think our infrastructure and services are already drowning? I did find this developer to be particularly genuine with their desire to hear feedback on their proposals, so I would encourage you to respond on their website. And, as always, happy to take your comments here directly without registration…

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