On my regular visits to Reading to visit my family’s grave, I always take time out to walk around Reading’s town centre. Beyond the loss of so many good old pubs, and the unimaginative blocks of flats, hotels and offices, a kind of counter-logical observation emerges: Reading has gone for high-densities, in the pursuit of a vibrancy that has simply failed to happen. Many new blocks of flats, medium-rise and tall, surround the town centre, but have done little to enhance the economic health of the town centre, and nothing to improve its appearance.
Pedestrianised Broad Street is shabby and uninspiring, with a soundtrack of wannabe ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singers warbling in front of a dilapidated Marks and Spencer. Just opposite, The Oracle, a glitzy covered shopping mall, has long been blamed for degrading the shopping streets nearby, but the main problem appears to have been an ad hoc approach by the council, who seem fixated on gaining city status by encouraging a cheapskate version of the New Urbanism that has been increasingly applied since the first New Labour government from 1997. This planning orthodoxy was summed up in the Towards an Urban Renaissance Report, issued in the late 1990s and written by Lord Rogers of Riverside. Lord Rogers accompanied his report with a slew of articles in newspapers calling for our town and city centres to be ‘crammed’. But as the English Garden City Movement used to argue, ‘nothing gained by overcrowding’.
There is also a case for planning controls on many of the shop fronts. Many beautiful Victorian buildings in Reading seem blanked out by a miasma of gaudy shop signage. This emphasises the overall shabbiness of much of the town centre. You have to look up to appreciate the red and yellow nineteenth century brickwork that once gave Reading a neat and tidy town centre.
Friar Street now contains quite a few new(ish) pubs and bars to appeal to a younger crowd, but is aesthetically abused by the Novotel and IBIS hotels which are out-of-scale and cheaply finished off. These hotels are also adjacent to the ongoing Station Hill development (about which more below).
The nearby Broad Street Mall, previously called the Butts Centre (it’s in St. Mary’s Butts), is awful outside and within. If any building needs knocking down and replacing it’s the Broad Street Mall. St. Mary’s Church opposite, dating from the seventh century, needs a friendlier, better-looking neighbour.
The area around Reading Station (the station itself is impressive, and gets one over on Oxford Station, which is dingy and small by comparison) has been pedestrianised and significant redevelopment between the station plaza and Friar Street, called Station Hill, may improve cohesion for visitors entering Reading by train. But the quality of design of the flats is uninspiring. They are hard-edged, lacking in any attractive external features, and perhaps worst of all, the great majority of them are built to be let, they are not for shared ownership or home ownership. And heaven knows the UK needs more homes for private purchase.
In the week before Christmas 2023 I walked around Reading town centre, took a few photographs, and chatted to some construction workers in the Gateway and the Greyfriar pubs on Greyfriars Street, which abuts Station Hill. All four of them were in well-paid jobs, and when I asked about the flats they were building, they all said they thought they were intended for ‘the boat people’. I’ve no idea how true this is, but it proves the widely held view that so much of the rental housing being built is being prioritised for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.
One of the largest rental companies in Reading is an outfit called Ebb and Flow, who are responsible for a large block of flats, 1 Station Hill, comprised of studio, one, two and three bedroom accommodation, between Friar Street and the railway station. The name ‘Ebb and Flow’ may unwittingly imply a transient population that will live there, many of whom will no doubt commute to work in London, Oxford or Slough by train. Needless to say this kind of identikit city centre development, to be found in so many towns and cities in England, comes with cycle racks, a gym and yoga facilities. And the glossy photographs on their website (Contemporary Apartments to Rent in Reading | Ebb & Flow Reading (ebb-and-flow.co.uk) are a cover for the truly awful visual impact that Station Hill is having on Greyfriars Street.
The fixation for building flats can also be seen in ‘The Huntley Wharf’ development. Well ‘wharf’ is fine, it sounds docklands-y and evokes images of a busy urban village. Built on the site of the old Huntley and Palmers factory, which made Reading famous for the manufacturing of biscuits and cakes, it also symbolises the evolution of post-industrial Reading. In a riverside setting, it is at least built for home ownership, and has some attractive landscaping: Huntley Wharf | Homes All Sold | Reading | Berkeley Group. Huntley Wharf isn’t in the town centre but is close enough to it, and walkable to and from the station.
Moreover, the council is planning to remove shops and the cinema from the Oracle alongside the Kennet, to build yet more flats. The cinema is slap bang by the Inner Distribution Road, however, so some flats or their bathrooms may not have a river view at all. The question hanging in the air is whether the building of flats and more flats at the expense of shops and leisure facilities will add to the vibrancy of the town centre, or detract from it.
The Royal Mail Depot development, also close to Reading Station, is planned to be yet another high-rise block in the centre. Little wonder that many in Reading are fearful of the overcrowding and impact on local infrastructure all this will have: The changing face of Reading – how huge developments could progress throughout 2021 – Berkshire Live (getreading.co.uk)
While Reading town centre appears to be subsumed by apartment and office blocks, some lovely areas of this Berkshire town still remain. Forbury Gardens and the Abbey Ruins are as beautiful as ever, and some of the apartments built alongside the Kennet, and further out in Caversham beside the Thames, are quite attractive. Reading Museum and the attached Reading Town Hall is still a gem, grey and red brick Victoriana in perfect harmony, with a superb exhibition of Reading’s history, and good little gift shop, inside. This is the most attractive quarter in Reading.
But in general the whole town centre needs to be upgraded, tidied up and finished off. It certainly has the economic growth to do it. And finally, how many more vape shops, phone shops, Turkish barbers and nail bars can a town take…? (updated 30-01-24)
