As the days lengthen and mercury starts to climb, life is springing out of the ground. Although this year, as far as Reading’s major construction projects go, we have some cases of delayed germination. Right now, there’s only one crane following the sun around the town centre sky, despite no end of seeds planted. Let’s take a look at what’s going on…

The ‘Domain’ complex is the major project in progress, with 165 apartments nearing completion. And we have one scheme about to come to life, with Berkeley making final preparations to its site for 209 flats with a cafe and pedestrian link onto Christchurch Bridge. But after that, we await the next green shoots. Some seeds may be slowly rotting in a planning quagmire, whilst others struggle for the right conditions to grow.

One major issue seems to be developers and contractors going bust. The Domain project itself would be complete were it not for building outfit Henry going bankrupt shortly after starting work on phase two. After a fairly lengthy pause, the work was taken on by Bect.

At Soane Point, construction firm Paramount D&B recently failed mid works, leaving the Market Place site abandoned. The investor is now trying to phase the plans to bring in some occupants (and revenue) before completing the upward extensions to the building at a later date.

At Great Brigham’s Mead, the owner has gone bankrupt, with the administrators now trying to get the scheme moving. With most central developments hitting 10+ storeys, the defunct developer cannot reasonably have foreseen having multiple failed attempts at getting an extra couple of floors onto the mere three-storey offices – all knocked back by the council. And it would seem reasonable to ascribe that a factor in the developer’s demise, although a document from the administrators – bizarrely needing to seek permission for not having yet completed the residential conversion – chooses to blame bats:

“[Permission for] A longer period for completion… was sought for several reasons including:
Financial difficulties experienced by the original main contractor. A new contractor was appointed …. However, bats were discovered in the roof space which, invariably, resulted in further delay whilst a license for works that could impact the bats was sought from Natural England. During this delay the new contractor also experienced financial difficulties and was unable to continue with the development. The ongoing delays resulted in the developer (Kings Oak Miami LLP) ultimately falling into administration. The administrator appointed a new project and design team to bring the conversion works to completion but fundamentally, was not able to do so…“

What a mess. Essentially, I think they needed the bigger development to be viable. The council will say it’s not its fault if companies potentially overpay for sites. But it was pretty harsh to deny them what was little more than a loft conversion. Corporate chaos ensues, and no new homes are delivered. Perhaps calling themselves ‘Kings Oak Miami’ was unwise – ‘Kings Oak Whitley Wood’ might have curried more favour locally, as well as being arboreally coherent.

At Eaton Place, the scheme brought forward by developer Osborne for the redevelopment of a disused commercial building was rejected, partly on dubious heritage grounds. The 60 year-old company has now collapsed, although I’m unclear on the chronology – it might have failed shortly before the rejection in Reading, explaining the lack of an appeal. The old office block remains dilapidated with no word of new plans in the works.

But Reading’s most notorious developer graveyard remains the former Bristol & West arcade. Investor Brook Henderson, now dissolved, abandoned a health club regeneration scheme mid-construction during the financial crisis of 2008. An offshore entity, now folded, by the name of Sonic Star finally bought the site but failed to implement permissions for flats or for a hotel, and sold at a significant loss. New owner Mountley was then bizarrely denied permission for a small mansard roof extension even though the previous applicant had won approval for a complete demolition and replacement with a far taller building. We’re still waiting to find out whether they can breathe life into the ground floor areas of that whole corner scheme in a way that Town Hall Square and Market Place deserve.

“Won’t somebody think of the property developers?” is a difficult line to sell. But I actually think I make a reasonable case. To get something approved and built, it seems you require agreement from council senior executives, planning officers, an array of consultees, elected councillors… then the developer still needs its finances approved and often prospective tenants signed up. You need a full planetary alignment to see a crane in the sky. And even then the contractor will probably go bust.

I’m not sure I can legitimately say that the council is anti-development. They just approved the first co-living scheme – even I voiced concerns on the small unit sizes. Equally, the generation-long Station Hill delays cannot really be pinned on the council, who approved no end of different schemes over the years. Station Hill is now filling up – many office floors have been let to a variety of occupiers, and ground floor retail unit tenants are queuing up, including just-confirmed Angelo’s Italian and 1650 Coffee Co, plus a rumoured Flight Club.

The council also makes some principled positions stick: they refused the full redevelopment of the ex-Drew’s heritage site, later approving a conversion/extension project instead. And now it looks like that will be implemented, with a construction plan and timetable recently submitted for approval, implying – to my surprise – the revised scheme is viable.

My view, however, is that there are too many petty rejections like some of those I mention above, and there is especially a problem with the time things take to get approved. The Oracle’s Debenhams scheme was submitted in 2022 and is still awaiting determination. Likewise for Napier Court, papers filed last summer but no news. Kings Meadow View (Forbury Retail Park) was June 2023 – all quiet there too. With the exception of the latter, sites sit vacant. I’m sure there are all manner of reasons, including developers maybe not providing details required at times, but it does feel like there’s a problem at the council end, although I don’t doubt funding is part of it.

Last week saw the Broad Street Mall residential scheme head to the planning committee with a recommendation for approval based on scrutiny by council officials over the course of more than a year. However, councillors were largely hostile to the proposals, aligning more with a lengthy objection from a local residents’ association. I appreciate that councillors aligning with residents is kind of the whole idea of local democracy, but is that hostility really the view of full set of electors? Forget any talk of a silent majority, this scheme had more letters of support from residents than objections. And where was the councillor focus on the economic advantages?

Let’s take a step back. Reading is a town that’s constantly a victim of being not quite big enough. Not quite large enough to justify some of the cultural and leisure facilities that people incessantly demand. The largest town not to be a city. Very nearly the largest town with only one MP until a number of us vented at recent boundary proposals and got it changed back to two. We look set, albeit with a delay, to become the largest town or city with no NHS hospital, and depending how the local government reorganisation goes, we could very well become the largest place hosting no elected forum of any kind.

At the same time, we’re just big enough to have many advantages. The transport links, for one. But particularly important to many residents, we have a relatively thriving town centre with a diverse set of uses. Some might dispute this, but take the example of Marks & Spencer. In the last few years, they’ve closed their town centre stores in: Doncaster, Blackburn, Bolton, Crawley, Middlesbrough, Peterborough, Northampton, Bradford, Burton, Swindon, Bournemouth, Slough… They’re like grim reaper going around killing off town centres. The momentum and knock-on effects mean many of those town centres are sadly evolving to have minimal function or civic value to the broader urban populations that surround them. Just have a read of the comments on local news articles in those places.

Reading has avoided this fate through being just about big enough, coupled with reasonable transport: good buses, train, and you’re still allowed to drive into town and park. But the additional key factor has been that there’s a strong demand for central urban living, and a council that has been forward-looking enough to latch onto that and run with it, bringing several thousand new residents into the town centre supplementing the population that facilitates a viable centre. I know it brings its challenges, but on balance it’s a good plan – we should stick with it.

Councillors chose to defer a decision on the Broad Street Mall but sounded to me to be minded to refuse. Key sticking points were the 10% affordable housing contribution. Yet they’d previously accepted a scheme on the same site with 10%. And now delays, delays… The only way the council can deliver affordable housing is to approve planning applications. If you want more affordable housing then speed up your planning approvals. And then hope the developers can stop selfishly bankrupting themselves for long enough to deliver it.

The other sticking point was parks and play space for families taking up residence in the proposed scheme. The southwest sector of the town centre is quite a way from the Thames meadows, so I take the point. But a developer cannot conjure up a park when their site is just a small corner of a concrete shopping centre. The ask to fund the IDR decking for a park is laudable but surely too late in the day to throw into the mix. The request for children’s play space in this part of town could be fulfilled nearby – the obvious answer would be to sling up those yellow metal railings and gates at either end of the route by the north side of the civic offices to create a playground. Hopefully it’s still possible the developer can throw in a swing set and we can still get this project approved next month.

I feel the councillors should have been asking far more about the impact, both positive and negative, on the town centre economy. There are downsides. The build period (and the existing uncertainty period for that matter) weighs on the attractiveness of the mall. With TK Maxx moving to the Oracle on 22nd May, we’re looking to Gregg’s and Boswells to anchor that mall for the foreseeable. That’s ‘anchor’ not to be confused with Ankor, the developer who first tried to repurpose the ex-Jackson’s department store before, you guessed it, going bust (technically a subsidiary thereof).

The car park will be closed for at least a year – is there a plan to ensure regular users are directed to other nearby facilities? And when it reopens as a much smaller car park, can we move the subsidised town centre worker parking that I believe may be enjoyed by some businesses further out to Chatham Place to maintain maximum convenience for visitors? Perhaps not technically planning considerations, but it would be nice to hear councillors contributing on these topics.

Ultimately the economic advantages should win out, breathing life into a barren and neglected corner, creating momentum that other nearby projects in the civic/Minster Quarter can build upon. The area will be transformed immensely for the better, with the long, south-facing frontage finally activated, having been senselessly wasted all this time.

If the bigger new schemes are struggling to grow tall just now, the ground cover is full of new life. I mentioned the Station Hill arrivals already. In the Oracle we have Hollywood Bowl fitting out its major new complex, and the latest floorplan shows ProCook and Shake Shack poised to open. Zara is rumoured to take the huge top floor of the former House of Fraser, with Apple also upsizing significantly to take the former Top Shop. Bowl Central is on-site at the ex-Dawson’s, with Lane7 potentially stalling. Boom Battle Bar is already fitting out the former Revolution, with the competitive socialising trend showing no sign of slowing down.

Vue cinema is signed up for a further 5 years, with the talk of redeveloping that block on the back-burner. The Debenham’s redevelopment however, is becoming more urgent – we really need to see that approved fast. The council’s own government-funded projects are coming forward with the new library under construction and Hexagon extension to follow, along with Purple Turtles’ new space along the road. Duke Street/Abbey Corner has quickly filled up after the residential works above, and Jackson’s is now fully occupied. Even the Harris Arcade has been repainted, with an expanded hat shop too.

The office-to-residential conversion trend also looks set to continue with plans submitted for part of the green glass offices on Kings Road to be converted, along with two thirds of the other former-Pru offices further east on the Huntley & Palmers corner. Offices on Caversham Road are already going the same way, but we await news of the proposed Moda Living scheme at the long-vacant sorting office.

As usual, plenty to report from Reading town centre – a bumper crop of news from the high street. Hopefully we can yet avoid a fallow year for some of the largest schemes.

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