Reading station is being rebuilt.  The whole station area is being revamped. We have fantastic plans for the new station buildings. We have Mr Madjeski’s skyscapers going up over the road. We should all be celebrating the huge investments being made in our town. Unless, of course, you are a bus passenger.

In amongst the hundreds of millions of £s of funding the council has decided that we do not need any sort of bus terminus outside the station, passengers will be dropped at bus stops in nearby streets and then also have to queue up there. There will be no information desk, no teabar, no loos, no covered walkways to protect against bad weather and no easy way to find your bus stop if you are not a regular passenger. No, Reading can do without these, they might get in the way of developing Station Hill. We may have excellent buses and a good network of routes but at the hub of the network there will be no central terminus and no facilties.

The plans for bus passengers at the new station are a shambles and will not serve the town’s current passengers let alone the doubling of numbers expected after the station is rebuilt. This is no way to encourage people to make more use of the bus.

In case you missed it, Reading Boerough Council has just finished consulting on Traffic orders to close Station Hill to through traffic as the first stage in redevloping the station area.