Victory on Tilehurst Car Park Charges

The Labour Administration in Reading has today backed down on its decision to charge users of Tilehurst car parks from the moment they park their car. Lead Councillor for Transport Tony Page was forced, in the face of furious Lib Dem councillors from Tilehurst and elswhere, to reduce the plans for car park charges to only charge after the first hour which will remain free, and to put the whole proposal out to proper consultation.

This is a huge relief for residents and shop owners of  Tilehurst and allows residents to do there shopping with free parking in Recreation Road and Dunstall Close car parks. It is a massive victory against an arrogant, out-of-touch Labour council. It also shows the value of electing Lib Dem councillors to represent Tilehurst !

Charges for Tilehurst Car Parks ?

The Lead Councillor for Transport has once again demonstrated how arrogant Labour politicians never actually listen to local people. Cllr Tony Page has just announced his decision to implement charging for car parks in Dunstall Close and Recreation Road. There has been no consultation with local councillors, no notice, just a decision announced. I and my colleagues, Cllrs Pete Beard and Chris Harris are incensed at this heavy handed and outrageous move.

We have told officers that, following our recent Residents Surveys, lots of residents were in favour of charging for long stay parking, more than 2-3 hours, in these car parks as they  are denying space to the people for whom the car parks were designed, the shoppers.

What the council have come up with is a decision to charge everyone who uses the car opark, even if they only park for a few minuites to use a cash machine or buy a paper. This is a nonsense and Tilehurst residents will not support it.

We are calling in this  decision for re-consideration at Cabinet where we hope reason will prevail.

Clearing Chieveley Close

Following last week’s heavy snow (over a foot in Reading), many side roads are still covered with a layer of ice and snow. Quite a few residents have not been able to get out on foot or by car for several days. The council have managed to clear the main roads and grit them and over the weekend they brought in two JCBs to clear the remaining bus routes where snow ploughs could not be used. So after a very long weekend of overtime the highways team have got Reading’s roads back to a state where at least the buses can run normally, they actually ahve done a splendid job. Except of course they are changing the bus routes and timetables tomorrow (Monday). Check the details at:

http://www.reading-buses.co.uk 

Early this morning I spotted a couple of neighbours setting off down the road with shovels. I realised what they were doing and ran out to join them clearing our road (Chieveley Close) of snow, pausing only to borrow a spade from another neighbour (my son took off with mine last Monday when he drove up to Wantage expecting the worst). Anyway, to cut a long story short, what started off with two men quickly grew into a gang of 10 -12 neighbours and in about 3 hours we had cleared the road and the two smaller closes, Enborne and Wootton. Lots of hard work, the odd cup of tea, and the satisfaction of having achieved something between us. A good community effort. It was actually quite enjoyable, if a little exhausting. At least we can all get out now.

Bus passengers kept away from new station

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.

Hasty Consultation for the Buses

Reading Buses are consulting on changes to their routes but have given people only one week to respond. This is outrageous.

Their consultation is at

http://www.reading-buses.co.uk/articles/reading-buses-needs-your-views/?PHPSESSID=6528259f93572ed490cdab575cb3b714

If my reading of the changes is correct then residents living in the far west of Tilehurst will see a major reduction in frequency of their bus services. Many services (routes 33 and the new 33a that replaces the 15) will now terminate in the Triangle rather than carry on to the Bird’s Estate and Westwood Glen.

This is clearly unwelcome at a time when we should be encouraging people to use public transport and I shall be commenting to Reading Buses.

I have written to Reading Buses asking why they have given the public just one week to respond to their consultation.

In the meantime, your comments can be sent by e-mail to:-

consultation@reading-buses.co.uk

or by post to:-

Consultation
Reading Buses
Great Knollys Street
READING
RG1 7HH

Fined for Breaching Weight Restriction in New Lane Hill

It is not often I get the urge to repeat a press release from the council but this one caught my eye.

Fine for Driver Breaching Weight Restriction on Road

A supermarket delivery driver has become the first in Reading to be prosecuted after a resident reported him for ignoring weight restrictions on a road.

Co-op delivery driver Kyrstof Adamski was spotted by a resident taking a short cut in his 33-tonne articulated lorry up New Lane Hill, to get to the Co-op on School Road, Tilehurst.  New Lane Hill is one of a number of roads in the Borough with a 7.5 tonne weight restriction limit on it.

Reading Borough Council has been prosecuting weight restriction breaches for some time, but this is the first instance of a driver being prosecuted following a report by a resident.  He was fined £200, plus an additional £100 costs and £15 court levy by Reading Magistrates, following an investigation by Reading’s Trading Standards team under its (OWL) Over Weight Lorries Scheme.

The proper route to Tilehurst for vehicles over 7.5 tonnes is via Liebenrood Road and the Meadway.

The OWL scheme was set up for residents to report overweight vehicles illegally using their roads for short cuts. Trading Standards carry out spot checks during the year but the scheme was set up so residents could report illegal vehicles as and when they see them.

For more information of weight restricted roads in Reading, visit www.reading.gov.uk/adviceandbenefits/tradingstandards/owls-weightrestrictions/ or contact Trading Standards on 0800 626 540.

 Well done that local resident for reporting the lorry !

Who Believes in Park & Ride ?

On Monday, together with my Lib Dem colleagues Kirsten Bayes and Daisy Benson (our Wokingham colleagues have also called in the similar decision made by Wokingham as this is a joint service between the two councils), we called in the Labour Administration decision to increase the fares for the bus service to Loddon Bridge Park & Ride. Never mind that the increases are many times the current rate of inflation, this Administration, aided and abetted by the Tory ‘opposition’, gave a two fingered salute to those of us who are desperate to get commuters out of their cars and to reduce congestion in Reading.

Despite the amazing ease with which Reading uses TIF (Transport Innovation Fund, money given by central government to help reduce congestion)  funds to support bus services elsewhere in the borough (several times this year already), when in comes to Park & Ride they prefer to see more cars drive into Reading.

One explanation might be that the users of Park & Ride at Loddon Bridge do not tend to be voters in Reading whereas users of subsidised bus servcies within Reading do, or am I being too cynical.

The TIF bid for future funding includes money for replacing Loddon Bridge with an alternative Park & Ride site, its future is secure, so why reduce the bus service and put up fares by 20% ?

Local Labour and Tory politicians  should be asked to explain their action given that they have been trying to convince the rest if us that they support Park & Ride schemes.

Toads of Newbury Hall

The Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) mechanism will pump hundreds of millions of £s into tarnsport schemes in and around Reading to relieve congestion. Following the collapse of the one-way IDR scheme, RBC has tried to work with neighbouring authorities to develop a TIF bid to secure a large chunk of funds and asked their neighbours what schemes they would like included so that they can all be put together in a package that will have a major effect on Reading area transport over the coming 10 years or so. The TIF bid being put together recognises that if all the proposed measures do not seriously lower the levels of congestion in Reading town centre in the coming years then some form of charging will be needed. This might take the form of a Low Emissions Zone where heavier polluting vehicles are charged for entering the town centre.        Toad

Conservative West Berks councillors, in their wisdom, have decided not to participate in anything that might eventually lead to any form of charging. The Toads of Newbury Hall apparently could not care less about the poor peasants in Reading who are desparately trying to reduce congestion in their town. They still think thay have some inalienable right to drive their cars anywhere they damn well please and that congestion is obviously a Reading problem so why should West Berks be at all interested.

As it stands, the Toads will have their way, there will be no park and ride schemes to the west of Reading, no bus improvements and the A4 will remain as clogged as ever. In fact the A4 will get much worse when the developments approved by West Berks on Pincents Hill and around Theale are built and hundreds of new residents try to drive into Reading.

What a shoddy display of Tory ‘I’m all right Jack’ attitudes from the Conservative West Berks councillors !

Station Hill Planning Mess

Over the last week I have been at two functions that show the limitations of the planning system in this country.

Firstly, I attended a meeting of Reading BC’s Strategic Transport Board where we looked at plans for the new station and for the developemnt of the southern concourse which is designed to be an attractive glass ‘gateway’ to the town.

Later in the week I popped in to see the new plans on display by Sackville (controlled by John Madjeski) for the redevlopment of Station Hill. Station Hill 2 is the second attempt by Sackville to produce acceptable plans for this area. They have redesigned their original scheme to include more open space and put more thought into the amenities that could be provided for the public. This is very much designed as a showpiece that would change the face of Reading significantly.

The problem is that the two design teams working separately on Station Hill 2 and the new station itself do not seem to have had any contact with each other and however good or bad their plans are, they do not fit together. If built as currently proposed the vast new glass station entrance would be shaded by one of Sackville’s office block skyscrapers and nobody would ever see the magnificent new station entrance from the town and visitors coming in to Reading would be greeted by a concrete block obscuring the sun and light from half the new glass atrium.

And then there is the matter of Reading’s new transport interchange which the council’s team are now designing not as one complex but a series of three transport interchanges that will make changing buses at the central hub of Reading’s bus network a nightmare of long walks up and down stairs before finding that the new terminus is just the old bus stop in Friar Street (or wherever).  The bright new transport terminus is turning in to a different one way bus loop using bus stops spread out over miles of existing town centre roads with their narrow pavements and lack of facilities.

Would it not be possible for both sides, Sackville and Reading BC, to rethink their proposals for the vast area that is ready for redevelopment on the south side of the station and come up with an attractive, unified plan that incorporates the new gateway to Reading, a modern transport interchange (for buses, taxis, MRTs and even Private Hire Vehicles), a welcoming public open space as well as the new office blocks, shops and appartments.

Surely the value of  both developments would be enhanced by  working in unison, rather than each partner pulling in different directions.

Parking Spaces

Any urban council these days has a real problem with car parking. Many older streets were never built for cars and barely have one place on the road per house. Modern conversions of houses to multiple flats exacerbates this problem no end. Every resident assumes an automatic right to park his/her car outside their house. We can use residents parking schemes to avoid issues with outsiders taking up parking places but if there is not enough road space for all the required cars, somebody will get upset when they cannot find a space for their car.

On new developments we can make better rules but if this is done without thought we still end up in a mess as we have done on the Kennet Island development. Everyone selling the houses there knew that there were limited spaces available for parking cars. Everyone buying a house there should have been informed. That has not stopped new residents getting angry and upset when told that there is no room for the second car even if both partners sharing a house need them to get to work.

There is no easy answer, to build new housing with 2, 3 or 4 car parking spaces will require vast more new tracts of land to be made available (and consequently less green and pleasant land to live in) or for developers to build less houses per hectare. We already have a chronic shortage of affordable housing in Reading and across South East England. 

There is no answer without a modal shift to alternative forms of transport. We need to wean residents away from 100% dependence on cars to buses, trains, bikes and even (shock, horror) walking. We could add car clubs which provide cars on demand for their members for occasional trips.

We all know what needs to be done to get away from car dependence but often lack the will to do it. Public policy should aim to make alternative modes of tarnsport as appealing as possible. We do have a great bus service in Reading, we are making a start on implementing safe routes for bikes, we want more children to walk to school and not have mums clog up the roads with very short school run trips.

The reality is that we are going to have to suffer a great deal of collective pain on this subject over the next decade or two until we finally convince ourselves that there are alternatives to the car and that we have no automatic right to a parking place in the road outside our front door.