Morrisons to Install New EV Charging Area

Changes are coming to the Morrisons supermarket in Reading to make life easier for some shoppers.

The Basingstoke Road superstore — which already has a deli, fishmonger, café, recycling facilities and a fuel station — will see part of its car park turned into an electric vehicle (EV) charging area (PL/26/0290).

Plans already approved allow a canopy and chargers for eight cars at once. Installing the facility will remove 44 parking spaces. The Motor Fuel Group has applied to add a seven-metre pole sign to advertise the chargers to drivers.

In East Reading, permission has been granted to convert a vacant house of multiple occupation into self-contained flats (PL/25/0778).

The terraced property on London Road, near Liverpool Road and the Sutton Seeds roundabout, will become one three-bed flat and three one-bed flats. Planning officer Alison Amoah praised the development for providing a family-sized three-bed unit. The project was approved on Friday 6 March.

In Whitley, plans to replace a demolished semi-detached house in Blandford Road with a new five-bed family home have been put on hold (PL/25/1022).

The house was demolished sometime in the last two years. StreetView imagery from May 2023 showed it still standing; the latest imagery from last July shows the site boarded up. The council portal notes the property had been converted into three flats. The application was withdrawn by the applicant on 4 March.

Finally, an application seeks permission in principle for up to nine homes on land within the boundary of the Donnington Hotel at 82–86 London Road (PL/26/0249). An agent from Nexus Planning said the project would 'make appropriate, effective and efficient use of previously developed land, in a highly sustainable location.'

You can view each application by typing the reference in brackets into the council's planning portal.

James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter