A decision is due on a plan to add 70 homes to the Emmer Green Drive estate — currently 223 homes being built on the former Reading Golf Course off Kidmore End Road in Caversham.
Last year planning consultancy Fairfax and Reading Golf Club, the landowner, submitted plans to extend the development north into South Oxfordshire. The only access to the site is via a road inside Reading Borough Council's area.
South Oxfordshire District Council rejected the northern extension in December and the developers have appealed to the government planning inspectorate. Reading's planning applications committee recently agreed a recommendation that will be considered at the appeal hearing on Wednesday, February 4.
Reading councillors had asked for the developers to pay £150,000 for safety upgrades at the Last Crumb junction last November. Matt Burns, a principal planning officer, later recommended reducing that ask to £50,000. Members of the public pushed councillors to stick with £150,000, and Labour councillors said they could not reject the plan but insisted on the higher sum. It was also noted council tax from the 70 homes would go to South Oxfordshire, not Reading.
Nick Haskins, chair of the Caversham and District Residents Association, said £50,000 would be too low given the extra traffic. Dan Winchester, representing 70 households, warned the highways impact would spread beyond Last Crumb and said: "We would love to see a more ambitious ask from Reading to mitigate not only the Last Crumb junction, which I absolutely accept the problems with, but also to look at the route to Caversham Bridge, that doesn't even seem to be on the radar."
The developers submitted a travel plan estimating likely car, bus and bike use by future residents.
Cllr Stephen Goss (Conservative, Emmer Green) warned Reading would take the traffic impact while South Oxfordshire got the benefits, arguing the local roads lack capacity. "No amount of money that we request will satisfactorily solve the infrastructure problems, there just is not the capacity."
In the committee vote only Cllr Goss and Kathryn McCann (Green, Redlands) opposed the recommendation; the other councillors voted for it. You can view the application on Reading council's planning portal using reference PL/25/0691. The appeal is due to be decided in March.
James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter
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