A plan to add 70 homes to a development that is being built on a former golf course north of Reading could still go ahead despite it being rejected last month.
A plan to add 70 homes to the Emmer Green Drive development on the former Reading Golf Course could still go ahead despite being rejected last month.
The site off Kidmore End Road in Caversham is already being built out. Reading Borough Council approved the main scheme in March 2022, which will deliver 223 homes once finished.
Reading Golf Club and planning consultants Fairfax then submitted plans to build a further 70 homes on vacant golf course land. That part of the site sits inside South Oxfordshire District Council’s (SODC’s) area.
In a surprise for the developers, SODC’s planning committee rejected the extension, saying the land is not designated for housing and is in an “unsustainable location”. The developers have told Reading council they intend to appeal to the government’s planning inspectorate.
If the appeal succeeds the overall Emmer Green Drive scheme would rise to 293 homes. The rejection and the possible appeal were reported to Reading’s planning applications committee on 7 January.
Reading council says it wants the developers to pay £150,000 for safety improvements at the Last Crumb junction if the extension goes ahead. Campaigners have been calling for upgrades to the Prospect Street, Westfield Road and Henley Road junction for years.
There has been confusion because the 70-home plot is inside South Oxfordshire but the only access would be from Reading Borough. Councillors were said to have to limit comments to what they could send to SODC when the scheme was discussed at Reading in November.
Julie Williams, the council’s development manager, said: “If we had been bringing our own application to you at the same time, we would have been recommending approval.
“I don't want to say too much, but in terms of the fact that we’ve already granted permission for the majority of the site, this is, in a way, an extension to that.
“There is very little for officers to find a planning reason for why we shouldn’t approve the part that’s in our borough.”
Reading’s planning committee is expected to make a resolution on how it would have decided if it had the power to do so when it meets on 4 February.
You can view the application on SODC’s planning portal (reference P25/S1431/O) and Reading’s portal (reference PL/25/0691).
The committee has had to make similar resolutions before: an outline plan to replace Reading Station Shopping Park with flats and commercial space was the subject of a council resolution in February 2022 and was ultimately approved by the government in March 2024.
Earlier attempts to build on the golf course go back years. An original plan was withdrawn in November 2020 and a second plan was rejected by Reading council in July 2021. Fairfax appealed that decision while an appeal was live when Reading councillors later approved the successful plan for 223 homes; that earlier appeal was subsequently withdrawn.
James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter
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