Confusion Over Parking for New Flats Approved

Plans for flats on the site of the former Reading gas tower have been welcomed - but confusion remains over parking.

The gas tower in East Reading was deconstructed in April 2022; it had stood since 1916. Developers first lodged plans in 2019 to build 130 flats across three blocks of nine, five and two storeys.

An initial scheme was approved in November 2019 but was later revised to meet post-Grenfell fire rules and other changes. One change turned a two-bed into a three-bed, leaving 48 one-bed, 73 two-bed and nine three-bed flats.

Twelve two-bed and three three-bed flats are designated affordable: five for affordable rent and 10 for shared ownership. All the affordable homes are in block C, the two-storey block.

The developer swapped gas boilers for air-source heat pumps and cut car parking from 127 spaces to 121. The revised plans were discussed at a Reading Borough Council planning committee meeting on July 22.

John Ennis (Labour, Southcote), lead councillor for climate strategy, said: "The heat pumps for energy efficiency and carbon emissions reduction can only be welcomed.

"For the reduction of parking spaces, the Prime Minister [Andy Burnham] has just dropped the bus fares from £3 to £2.

"I spent all my journey on the bus thinking ‘how am I going to get that into planning?’ Well, there you go!"

Cllr James Moore (Liberal Democrats, Tilehurst) added: "All the changes appear to be really, really good: the removal of gas boilers, it appears to be bringing the application up to date. I’m not particularly bothered about the reduction in car parking."

Confusion centred on parking for block C. It originally had 12 surface spaces outside it, three of them disabled, but revised plans appeared to show them all as EV charging spaces - a point raised by Micky Leng (Labour, Whitley).

Cllr Richard Davies (Labour, Thames) warned: "It’s unfortunate that, in reality, there’ll be a detrimental impact on affordable housing parking provision.

"These spaces were allocated, pragmatically, for the people in those flats, now they are going to be used by people with EVs from all the blocks."

Planning officer Richard Eatough suggested disabled parking may have been moved into blocks A or B, because EV spaces had to be removed from the multi-storey blocks for fire safety. Cllr Josh Williams (Green, Park) said parking matters for disabled people, those in affordable housing and EV drivers.

As a fix, the committee added a condition that parking priorities must be seen and approved by Thames ward councillors. The adjustments were unanimously approved.

You can view the approved application on the council planning portal using reference PL/25/0697.

James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter