{"id":264739,"date":"2026-08-13T18:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/264739\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T18:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:42:11","slug":"decision-due-on-600-new-flats-in-reading-town-centre-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/264739\/","title":{"rendered":"Decision due on 600 new flats in Reading town centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A decision is due to be made on plans to build nearly 600 flats in Reading town centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The proposals are the third phase of the Station Hill development, one of the biggest projects in the town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A decision will be made about detailed plans for Phase 3A of the development, which would see 598 flats built within two new apartment blocks, by Reading Borough Council&#8217;s planning committee later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Station Hill development project has so far included restaurants, an office building, and 600 further flats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Phase 1 saw Friars Walk shopping centre replaced by apartments and the Siren Craft bar, with Phase 2 seeing One Station Hill built on the site of the Garrard Street multi-storey car park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The new flats will be split into 34 studios, 330 one-beds, 214 two-beds and 22 three-bed flats.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;High quality of architechture&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Xafinity House, a defunct multi-storey office building, would need to be demolished to make way for the apartments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The plans are supported by Steve Vigar, the council&#8217;s planning team leader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Speaking to the <a data-ylk=\"slk:Local Democracy Reporting Service,;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/lnp\/ldrs?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Local Democracy Reporting Service,<\/a> he said: &#8220;The design of buildings would offer a high quality of architecture, which would have a positive effect on the townscape at close quarters and from other viewpoints in the town.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Outline plans for the project were approved in July 2021, subject to detailed plans being approved at a later stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Changes made since include the scrapping of a single L-shaped building design in favour of separate blocks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The development will provide 75 affordable rental flats, split into three three-bed, 27 two-bed and 45 one-bed flats, amounting to 12.5% affordable housing provision, less than the council&#8217;s policy of 30%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The development project is car-free, except for four disabled spaces, with 337 cycle spaces provided.<\/p>\n<p>More on this storyRelated internet links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decision is due to be made on plans to build nearly 600 flats in Reading town centre.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111773,128,130,129,111774],"class_list":["post-264739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-borough-council","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-station-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}