READING Borough Council is to consider its options after a £24 million plan to build a single track bus lane bridge over the River Thames was turned down by Wokingham Borough Council’s planning committee on Monday.
The committee voted five to four against the proposals which would see the historic riverside setting that borders Reading and Wokingham replaced with a concrete bridge that would be plonked next to Grade II listed bridges built by Brunel when he made the Great Western Railway.
At the meeting on Monday, campaigners and local councillors spoke out against the scheme, warning the committee that if they approved it, “it would ruin a valued green open space at Kennetmouth”.
Bulmershe and Whitegates Labour councillor, Andy Croy, said that the scheme, which would be in his ward, was not a Mass Rapid Transport scheme: “An MRT is, typically, a light railway moving large volumes of people.”
Instead, the plans link a new 277-space park and ride car park with the Vastern Road end of Reading’s railway station rather than the town centre end. Although it would be two lanes for the road side of the scheme, as it goes over the River Thames it would be a single lane bridge.
READ MORE: Wokingham Council planning committee turns down MRT bus lane bridge plan
The committee agreed with the protestors, to the dismay of Reading Borough Council’s Lead Member for Strategic Environment, Planning and Transport, Cllr Tony Page.
He said: “Reading Borough Council is hugely disappointed by Wokingham’s Planning Committee’s decision to refuse permission for a public transport, cycling and pedestrian route between Wokingham and Reading Town Centre.
“We are additionally disappointed as the scheme has been substantially modified following concerns raised by Wokingham planners at an early stage. These include major changes to the design of the scheme to lessen the visual impact, and improvements to environmental elements which prompted the Environment Agency to remove its own objections to the scheme.
“Reading Borough Council will now consider its options going forward, taking into account the possible impact of costs and delays.”
For more on this story, see Thursday’s Wokingham Paper
