A new strategy has been published by the council that looks at how best to enhance the town centre environment. The plans involve resurfacing pedestrian areas, reallocation of road space, and considerable landscaping proposals. It’s a creative-heavy document covering a design strategy, rather than specific funded and timetabled works, and it will go to a consultation initially. I’ve pulled out some of the imagery and details below.
There may be some cynicism directed towards a bunch of pretty pictures. Some glass-is-half-full commentators draw attention to the decline in pure retail footprint playing out in town, even though this is a national trend. Re-paving Broad Street doesn’t guarantee its success – Northampton has a beautifully surfaced high street full of phone and vape shops – but refreshing the town centre “public realm”, as it’s known jargonistically, will be a welcome boost. You can’t “style it out” when addressing the fundamental changes facing our town and city centres, but I’m confident for Reading that we can have the substance and the style. 2025 promises to be a year of significant change to the retail and leisure offering, so let’s start there before we get into the artistic impression points.
The over-dependence of national chain retail caught Reading out as online shopping and post pandemic patterns played out. The leisure offering has been lacklustre with various proposals falling through. But 2025 could be a tipping point as we finally realise people need things to do as well as things to buy. First up, the Urban Fun gaming arcade in Broad Street Mall will open imminently, hopefully drawing teenagers into town and off their phones. Rumoured imminent arrivals around Reading Station and the Station Hill area include Flight Club and Boom Battle Bar. Whilst still essentially bars, the socialising is focussed around various activities including darts, shuffleboard, pool and even axe throwing. The Oracle’s long-awaited Hollywood Bowl will be a vast venue located in the former House of Fraser basement by summertime, and Lane7 has been granted a license to operate in the defunct Mothercare on King Street offering two floors of augmented reality gaming and potentially more bowling.
If the competitive socialising trend isn’t for you, we should also see Cosy Club take the long-vacant ex-Lakeland unit on the way into the Oracle, and Rosa’s Thai is fitting out the even-longer vacant Jackson’s Corner principle unit. Further lettings are rumoured at Station Hill. If you add in the TK Maxx relocation to the Oracle to enable redevelopment in the mall, that must be well over 100,000 sq ft of repurposed retail space throwing opens its doors in 2025.
This time out I’ll take a break from all the residential proposals, but they too clearly contribute massively to business viability and town centre life in general. It’s in that context of a succeeding rather than failing centre that we should look at these proposals to smarten up areas of town for everyone to enjoy. So let’s rifle through the ideas.
There is a view that the uniform red brick paving that was gradually applied around town from the mid 1990s is becoming dated and due for replacement. I would agree that the numerous post-surgical scars do cumulatively detract, and have clearly worsened in recent years with occasionally less diligent patch-up work. But I don’t mind the red brick so I’m not entirely sure we need to move from one universal red scheme to a new universal neutral stone colour as is being proposed.
Market Place would see a narrowed lane for the buses, allowing for wider pavements and less congestion for bus stop queues. Butter Market would be included in a continuous landscaped zone with more outdoor seating and planting. Similar treatment on Station Road is foreseen, with a new crossing and build-out opposite the Harris Arcade entrance to enhance its prominence. The busy pedestrian space in front of the Wendys corner would be substantially enlarged.
The wide St Mary’s thoroughfare would see probably the most significant changes. The carriageway would be routed entirely to the west of the jubilee fountain creating a large new area of greenery and seating in front of the Minster cemetery wall. The setting of the church would be enhanced by the bigger pedestrian zone in front of it. Improvements would extend along Hosier Street with new trees planted along the current market area.
Chain Street would see welcome improvements with potential for murals on lower quality frontages. And they must have some flags left over from the new swimming pools. Meanwhile, a riverside site near Queens Road car park has been identified for more green space and an area for children to play.
Queens Walk behind the mall is similarly conceived as an area for more variety and fun. Although their giant chess set is somewhat realistically shown to be reduced to four pieces already, with the remaining 28 pieces rumoured to be scattered around various watercourses and atop the communal fridges in university halls of residence.
Perhaps most controversially in the plans, there is a recommendation (shown rightmost above – their favoured variant) for a five metre-wide “movement corridor” along the centre of a resurfaced and de-cluttered Broad Street. Apparently it’s not a “cycle lane”, but if it quacks like a duck…
Reading has an active cycling lobby, and when they make arguments around needing segregated cycle lanes on busy roads for safety benefits then you can see their point. Safety is probably the main reason I rarely cycle locally, so I fully accept the argument that well planned cycling infrastructure is a case of “build it and they’ll come”, to the benefit of us all. However, Broad Street is pedestrianised and the clue’s in the name. It’s the main drag for shoppers and visitors, which of course includes cyclists. But with cycle parking at either end of the street, I don’t see why we need a cycle motorway traversing the centre of town, at least through Broad Street – use Minster Street perhaps? If the Broad Street “movement corridor” goes ahead then it will be treated as the possession of cyclists, and temporary events like Christmas markets will be opposed on the grounds that “you wouldn’t take space from motorists”… Hopefully the consultation will prompt a re-think.
Queen Victoria Street would again get the same natural stone palette that “highlights the architecture rather than competes with it”. Outdoor dining would be permitted up to two metres from the building frontages.
On Queens Road, the theme is green as substantial planting of trees and low-level shrubs seek to transform the environment. Space is created by reducing the current two westbound lanes to one, and removing the obsolete stretch of road in front of the casino (itself a redevelopment rumour). All sensible. The plan also includes reducing High Bridge to a single signal-controlled section in order to widen the pavements, but expect this idea to be dropped once the bus company gets involved.
They’re all just concepts at this stage, but it’s encouraging to see the authority looking at options to improve the town centre. Unlocking the funds might be the tougher task, although with significant regeneration projects planned in many of these areas, that might provide an answer. For now it’s just a proposal for people to throw stones at – natural, grey or buff alike. We might even get some darts or axes to chuck around in the meantime.
Follow @readingonthamesHave the plans hit the bullseye for you? Comments always welcome and can be left without registration.
Reading-on-Thames 
Butter market is a beautiful part of the town, I’m sure the money could be redirected to the shabbiest corners.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As a cyclist I hate having to cycle along Broad St. Why can’t they make a northbound lane from Jackson’s corner to Friar St. so we can get there and cycle on a quietish road without risking collisions with meandering pedestrians.
LikeLiked by 1 person
These changes won’t fix the constant drug dealing and being accosted by junkies as you are trying to walk around the town centre.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think that’s a different government level beyond the realm of a local council.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m hoping the Bierhaus in Queens survives the regeneration. The view seen in the article seems to be keeping the escape room so maybe they will be able to stay as well.
LikeLike
Their unit is in scope of the development. Hopefully they can relocate rather than close.
LikeLike
We have some odd ideas in this country about our towns and cities. Letting corporations lead as we try to second guess what the effect their technology will have with little democracy or choice over whether this is the way we want to live or not. Everything delivered to you door from online sources rather defeats the object of densifying centres, or even having people living in the centres at all. Swapping to the three complimentary means of travel walking, cycling and public transport is great but bizarrely replaced with several delivery vans etc. dropping stuff off at every door? It seems like we could be making changes difficult to reverse when we finally figure out how wasteful and ecologically damaging online shopping really is on mass scales. I get it, private developers and corporations are more powerful than former county boroughs reduced to parish councils, but at least try to push back RBC. A conversation for another time perhaps.
Anyhow, I’m clearly not impressed. First of all the buses (our publicly poor uk version of decent public transport) already 1, find the town centre difficult to negotiate as there simply isn’t enough space from the last public realm change, nor space for any more routes and 2, still have really poor interchange options between routes making it several separate bus routes rather than a cohesive network. A problem haunting the town since the closure of Broad Street and further damaged by the removal of the terminal area beside the station (quite possibly one of the stupidest decisions RBC has ever made). If I could start again I would reopen Broad Street for the buses heading east and make all of Friar Street, Station Road, Market Place, Half of Blagrave Street, The Forbury, and Gun Street pedestrian. As this would be controversial for many the other option is Friar Street and a change to the way buses enter and leave the town to make interchange easier and free up more public realm.
The council should really be looking at a decent corridor across the town for the buses and potential future options to fit. The weaving around the tight side streets in town really doesn’t favour the public transport nor the public realm. Friar Street is currently the best option for this, but is already overcrowded with awkward bus stops. However, if we change the main bus routes from the hub and spoke arrangement back to cross town routes, we can make better use of the space available in Friar Street with large tram like stops designed for buses to just drop off pick up and leave. For this to happen the routes entry and exit points to the centre must change. This is probably controversial to many but it would mean taking lanes away from cars beyond the centre. First of all buses from the east currently leave to via Kings Road and enter the same or enter via East and North Forbury Roads, depending on the route. By converting the southern carriageway of East/North Forbury Road into a bus only route in each direction and a rethink of the H&P gyratory, we can route all buses a common route into town and allow all routes to serve the station before continuing across town. This will serve any development around the prison with a new stop outside it and free up space in Market Place and the western end of Kings Road. To free up those spaces fully though we would need to reroute the buses to and from the south. To do this would require the conversion of the wide carriageway in Mill Lane to the south of the flyover to another bus only corridor in both directions in order to gain access to and from the Oracle roundabout at Bridge Street, Bridge Street itself become buses only in both directions at its north end, removing that pesky Oracle car park queue in Castle Street. Some though has to go into what the cars do at the foot of London Street but this is an area which really needs a rethink as its a popular pedestrian corridor, yet really hostile to them. Ultimately the flyover needs to go eventually I think. Rerouting the south bound buses into Bridge Street, means that Market Place and Duke Street can be fully pedestrianised, creating some proper public realm for all those bars and cafes without the idling buses and queues of people. Both of these changes would also allow Gun Street to be pedestrian only and the widening of pavements along the western part of Kings Road, perhaps bringing a little more life to this area. Vastern Road could also have it’s southernmost carriageway converted to a bus only corridor benefiting better bus routes heading north over the bridges, an area really neglected by public transport in the last couple of decades but key suburbs that could make a huge difference to other areas of town if we can get more of the population to walk, cycle and use public transport by breaking down those car heavy barriers.
I would suggest four main cross town routes based on the simplicity of the 17 to do the main people moving around the town with all of them using Friar Street and West Street in both directions. The remaining hub and spoke routes only need use Friar Street in an outbound direction with Garrard Street/Greyfriars Road used for inbound and layover, away from the shops and people space.
Confusing and controversial stuff I know, and better explained with maps but councils all over the land have to be bolder and plan a better future locally, even if they don’t have much power. RBC are vaguely attempting to please everyone rather than leading with real ideas that can create further equality. Showing their work to justify funding rather than really making a difference. The economic and global instability means the future is cancelled for many but being bold locally can really make a difference to peoples lives where they can see the benefits of politics. I’m a firm believer in devolution and the civic and local coming back from the terrible centralised arrangement we currently have. Perhaps then we can decide ourselves if we want data tracked convenience (that we have to wait indoors for) or towns full of life, shops, everyday items available to buy everyday, pubs, cafes, even several choices of bowling alley, and decent means of accessing those spaces.
Much Maligned Town.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for sharing those ideas! I actually think some of that might happen in the future. But to run cross town routes without long dwell time in the centre you need reliable journey times outside of the centre so that they don’t need to plan on the contingency time. Or you need 17-like frequency so that the timing is less relevant. Once they’ve bus-laned up the rest of these routes to get the reliability then maybe they could pick up some of these ideas?
LikeLike
Yes the frequencies of cross town routes would be 7 minutes or less. The idea is to consider your main routes as a tramway. Several routes converging on to one line across the centre. The dwell time in the centre wouldn’t be possible with a tramway, where dwell time simply occurs at either end of the route. With high frequencies you can have much looser timings where you simply need to regulate the vehicles so they remain a rough distance apart, much like how the 17, 15 and 25 used to be managed before bus deregulation, and the 17 until the early 2000’s when vehicles were removed from the loop. All four routes I proposed above could share one stop in Friar Street in each direction, one in West Street and one at the Station, each making transfer from every possible direction easy. Work beyond the centre, over the bridges for example wouldn’t be that necessary provided the centre can be passed through easily. For example currently a westbound 17, is traffic free from Palmer Park till George Street, dwell time at Tilehurst can take up the unpredictable nature of the Oxford Road journey time which is a combination of many factors. One of those factors that would be possible to tackle with a separate group of cross town routes to do the heavy lifting would be to move to off bus ticketing, the driver just doing the driving. This alone would rapidly speed up journey times regardless of traffic changes and has been done all over Europe for years. We don’t do it here because of the profit motive as our transport is private. Driving the things for two decades you learn that much of the hold ups are very trivial and traffic problems only account for half of them. Moving around the town centre and buses waiting time in the town centre is a big part of the problem. The bus stop in the Butts where the Whitley’s pick up and wait time is required by getting on to 30 buses an hour. The Lower Earley, University, Shinfield Road, Coley Park are also all timed at this stop. The timing is necessary because of the looped nature of the route around town. One bus poorly parked can mean several other buses on many other routes can lose time. The whole thing is a consequence of not properly planning transport post the 1986 deregulation. I think fix the centre and fix much of the rest.
Cheers
Much Maligned Town
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interesting thoughts. Thank you. I do think it could work taking one carriageway of Forbury Rd for bus lanes. It would be controversial!
Quicker boarding would definitely help journey times as well, agreed.
LikeLike
A further couple of points. The above idea would keep a lane open on Station Road for buses but would remove the bus stops that block the main passage of pedestrians into town, plus less buses would need to use it if Garrard Street was available for terminating buses layover. Admittedly the opening of Station Hill would make a difference to the route of some pedestrians but Station Road is a very clumsy position for bus stops.
Furthermore there is the possibility of gains with interchange and releasing the buses from general traffic with a northbound bus lane from Whitley Street down Mount Pleasant/Silver Street to meet the London Street bus lane. This would create better opportunities for interchange among buses beyond the town centre between the Whitley routes and university/Earley routes in both directions, plus create a traffic free route from Whitley Street to town, leaving only the Coley Park route on Southampton Street. Reducing the one way sections of public transport routes makes them easier to understand and encourages use of perhaps more than one route for a journey.
Cheers
Much Maligned Town
LikeLiked by 1 person
The plans look beautiful, but I already have not many qualms with how this part of town looks like structurally. More concerned about cleanliness and hygene, some of these streets and the surrounding areas have the ground covered in shattered glass or bird poo every day. Might be cheaper to take care of keeping things tidy and would be a huge uplift in general. You can still have both but just something to consider a bit more?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Trees are wonderful but on behalf of all people suffering with hayfever who struggle to breathe for a chunk of the year every year, please consider planting fruit trees instead of flower trees to reduce pollen amount. People will be happy to have a fruit snack here and there too, there aren’t enough fruits growing to impact supermarket sales anyway, so that shouldn’t be a concern.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bigger pedestrian space, more trees and beautification measures are clearly good. However, in the spirit of don’t let excellence be the enemy of the good, there are some basic measures that I wish the Council would pursue to make the town look nicer.
Trade Waste Bins
We are plagued with over-filling trade waste bins. They are often over-flowing, with cardboard, bags stacked around them. That just encourages people to treat them like dumping areas, making it even worse. This is caused by businesses not paying for more bins and/or a more frequent service. Not only does this look crap, it is a health hazard, especially for bins for food-related business.
External Facade of Empty Retail Units
Nobody likes empty retail units. It makes an area look unloved and unwanted. What makes it worse are landlords who make zero effort to make the public-facing frontage look nice or at least tidy. Some look downright derelict. From what I can see, The Oracle is the only place that does a half-decent job of not letting empty units become an eyesore.
Cleanliness of Public Spaces
More resources are required to keep public spaces clean and tidy.
Clearly the Council does not have the legal powers to dictate to landlords and businesses how to run their operations. However, I just wish the Council was not so passive.
The future of the high street is a huge nationwide issue. Online commerce has had a huge impact in how people procure. Personally, I cannot remember going in to town for a random wander. If I go to town, there is a reason and then I’m out. I would like the Council to be more active and creative in how to make Reading town centre with a higher ‘mooch’ factor. What does that mean?
It means making the town centre a space where people enjoy wandering around, popping in to shops for a browse, enjoy a coffee, catch a film, have a bite to eat. I find the economic agency too focused on corporate business, large infrastructure projects, and one-off events. Events are fine, but what is being done to make me fancy wandering in to town on a gloomy Monday in January?
Having said all this, I’m still pleased that the Council have plans to improve aspects of the town.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Totally agree with improving the ‘mooch’ factor. I myself go on a regular ramble through the town with stops at the Abbey ruins, library, museum, Biscuit Factory, and usually a cheeky half at the Alehouse (or formerly, Great Expectations — RIP). But not everyone has my interests — I would feel sheepish walking around with acquaintances from outside Reading without something more overtly attractive.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great points on the “mooch factor”. We could really do with nicking Oxford’s covered market. Just maybe the Gaol project might provide something…
LikeLike
Very impressed and pleased. Though it has its blemishes, we do, after all, live in a beautiful and vibrant town — a fact made all the more salient when one visits other towns in the south of England — and Reading’s aesthetic appeal is still far from being maximised.
Also like your naming of Wendy’s corner. I wonder if we could rechristen ourselves from the town with two rivers to the town with two corners, those of Jackson and Wendy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Peter
Love the phrase “… covering a design strategy, rather than specific funded and timetabled works, and …”
Makes it sound like several of the Conservative projects (HS2, New Hospitals, managing immigration, Levelling up …………………………. to name but a few) Ho Ho.
R
LikeLiked by 1 person
Touch of the Emperor’s New Clothes about all this. I agree with several of the other posters here – spend the money on cleaning the town up first! I would also be looking to hit the chains harder with financial assistance for litter clean up given they generate it in the first place.
LikeLiked by 1 person