Reading Borough Council (RBC)
A Cycle Forum meeting was held on 2 August, which allowed the Council to give updates on their progress and for group representatives to ask questions and make requests.
Shinfield Road Active Travel Scheme Tranche 2
The detailed design work is progressing for the Shinfield Road scheme proposals, but we are unaware of whether changes have been made in line with our comments.
We again requested consultation on the latest detailed proposals and were told that this should happen. We do not want to again be put in the position of having to publicly criticise the detailed proposals.
Cycle Hub
The Council are progressing with the proposed Cycle Hub, a secure cycle parking facility in the town centre. The location in West Street near the Broad Street Mall area is likely to open in a few months, with funding of £125k from the government’s Capability Fund.
Bath Road and Castle Hill Active Travel Scheme Tranche 3
The good news appears to be that Reading Borough Council has now received notification of over £1m in government funding towards the Castle Hill and Bath Road cycle scheme.
This route runs from Berkeley Avenue in the west and over the IDR (Inner Distribution Road) roundabout. The preliminary plans have just been out for public consultation but were the same as those we previously commented on when route choices were considered.
Parking on Castle Hill and the IDR roundabout are the main problem areas that we commented on. We requested consultation on any changes and on the detailed plans.
Traffic Management Schemes List
The Council has a long ongoing list of schemes requested by the Campaign and others. The intention being to implement schemes when funding is available. Unfortunately, progress is slow, very slow, a point that we again made.
RBC suggested that it may be useful if we gave them a shorter list of our main priorities. Town centre issues are probably the most critical and there are numerous large developments there that should be able to fund schemes!
John Lee
RBC Campaigner for RCC
