Reading Town Centre Strategy

The Reading Town Centre Public Realm Strategy outlines Reading Borough Council's vision for the town's public spaces, transforming them into pleasant, accessible, and sustainable environments that can support the town’s growing population and economic development for years to come. Key elements of this strategy focus on improving the quality, cohesion, and usability of the public realm while fostering a sense of identity, cultural vibrancy, and sustainability.

You can read the full strategy here.

REDA's response to Reading's Town Centre Strategy

REDA welcomes the Reading Borough Council Town Centre Public Realm Strategy, as a positive and useful tool which can support the future regeneration of the town centre, bringing together all who live work, do business and redevelop our sites. We believe a common design approach will be pivotal to securing future public and private sector funds. A webinar hosted with over 30 representatives of business and interested parties raised a number of points for consideration.

Importance of the strategy 
REDA operates the Business Improvement District on behalf of more than 650 town centre businesses. Evidence suggests the state of the public realm directly affects both the perception and behaviour of visitors, employees, businesses and residents. A poor public realm can mean people are less likely to want to visit, work, relocate, or invest in the town centre. The police have undertaken research in Reading which also suggests that a poor public realm perpetuates begging, rough sleeping, vandalism and crime.  A design guide type tool of this nature is therefore vitally important in reducing crime and simulating economic growth. 

Delivering the strategy
While the audience understood this is not a fully planned and funded strategy, rather a toolkit to be used in all town centre negotiations and proposals, there was a mention that S106 was the solution to funding the strategy.  The audience therefore expressed the wish that in the absence of the necessary public funds, the Council should  prioritise proposals in the public realm strategy, in any future planning application discussions with a view to extracting as much financial contribution to the enhancement and upgrade of the public realm as possible. We agreed with the consultants that further reference to good practice and expertise in Northern Europe should go hand in hand with more detailed plans in Reading as they are seen to be bolder and more impactful especially in  tackling the climate emergency and reducing the carbon emissions effect of vehicles. 

Reading climate mitigation and Nett Zero targets
REDA welcomes more planting as outlined in the strategy - shady tree-lined walks will be essential in maintaining cool spaces for people during heatwaves, especially if we want to discourage them to use air-conditioned cars.  Where possible, semi-permeable surfaces should be used in place of impermeable ones to assist with drainage in the event of heavy rainstorms, which are already becoming more frequent due to climate change. The strategy should cross reference advice in the 2025 Climate Emergency Strategy on this matter.

Reading - a living place
We welcome this as an underlying philosophy, however there are issues that we don’t feel have been sufficiently addressed in the strategy . Firstly, child-friendly recreation areas. There are examples where signs prohibit ball games and skating, with little or no areas for play activity. With more families living in the town centre, the strategy should outline how our urban spaces can be designed in a way to make such areas available and safe to all.  Secondly, our audience felt that despite design measures to mitigate the impact of cars and large vehicles the balance would still be in favour of them and not people. A balance that must be reversed if Reading is to be a ‘living place’.  REDA has seen a detailed response from Reading Buses and supports the case for public transport and reducing cars in the town centre.  However, landscaping measures are not enough - some bold decisions still need to be made alongside this strategy to reduce the visual impact, threat to safety and personal experience with a large number of vehicles (cars, delivery lorries, waste collection lorries and buses) in the town centre. We must also not forget that cycling as a sustainable and healthy form of transport is very welcome if the right segregation and signposting is put in place.  Again, Northern Europe may have the answer.

Wayfinding
We welcome the reference to wayfinding in the strategy and need for consistency.  This needs a masterplan approach across the whole town centre and should not be addressed by incremental signage schemes as at present. In particular we would like to see emphasis on signage to our visitor destination points  – cultural, heritage, arts and entertainment venues as well as hotels.  Perhaps colour coding areas / quarters of the town centres could be included in the strategy in a similar way to the successful colour coding of our Reading Buses. 

Reading borough Council recently adopted the Reading place brand and we would like to see this referenced in the design guide for use on any wayfinding, street art, entry signs street furniture etc. It is not just a logo and very adaptable with a full range of colours and adaptions to many situations as outlined in the detailedplace brand toolkit. The brand is more than just a logo and we would ask that the Public Realm Strategy specifically recommends that any physical structures  (lamps, signs, benches etc), are designed in a way that is authentically Reading with personality that reflects the town. (Station Hill Development and its public realm have really raised the bar and set a new benchmark in this respect.)

Public art
Reading has adopted a very comprehensive public art strategy, most recently delivered excellently in the Station Hill development.  We would like to see more detailed guidance on this in the strategy so it can benefit from developer funding as well. 

Our riverside public realm
Reading has three waterways. We would like to see more guidance on our rivers and canal side walkways and moorings as an integral and often overlooked part of the town centre. They are a great part of our heritage and hold great potential for more sustainable waterways to travel along the Thames, through The Oracle and down to south Reading with some investment and public realm design guidance.

Digital Screens
We would welcome guidance on the use of digital screens for advertising in the street scape. There was no support for digital screens and in fact REDA spearheaded a major campaign against the proposal for such a large screen in Broad Street which was finally rejected. However, guidance on where screens are out of character in the public realm may have prevented such an application being made in the first place.   

Counter productive influences
A number of negative influences on the public realm were highlighted by our audience, notable unsightly rows of bins (especially on Station Road and Oxford Road), the poor reinstatement of works on utilities infrastructure, cycle safety and infrastructure (e.g. confusing signs on Broad Street and ugly new black bicycle racks on Broad Street).    While bin collection is the subject of legislation their storage on the pedestrian areas and pathways is unsightly.  Perhaps the guidance could advocate underground storage options and provide consistent desgin guidance on cycle racks and parking areas.  It is also important that public realm design of landscaping and signage is included to ensure greater safety for pedestrians and families with children from cyclists.

Influences outside the remit of the strategy
We congratulate the consultants in referencing a wide range of other strategies that seek to shape the town centre including REDA’s own BID Plans (2024-29)  and Reading 2050 City Vision.  It is important that the Town Centre Strategy explicitly references the need for those using it to refer to these wider plans as they can sometimes hold the key to both solving some of the solutions  that can enhance the public realm and tackling issues that can be counter productive.   

Next steps for the strategy

• The audience  accepted the strategy did not have detailed costed and funded actions plans currently, but did emphasise the need for the Council to priorities Section 106 funding  towards an implementation  plan as soon as possible.  This means engaging developers immediately. 
• To prevent searching for funding, an idea was raised to engageresidents, landlords, businesses owners and their employees in taking pride in their public realm . This especially means public realm directly surrounding the properties of those living or using the town centre for business,  but also being involved in collective activities such as tree planting and litter picking etc.  REDA would be willing to work with the Council to further develop this idea with a pilot project. 
• REDA is keen to maintain inolvement in shaping further detailed plans and celebrating success.  We would be willing to convene similar focus group meeting to help shape and prioritise detailed proposals and also feedback regularly on progress made in implementing the strategy to businesses and interested parties.