Reading Council and fire safety

Following the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, Reading Council has clarified the situation in Reading. See below. We will keep up the pressure to ensure that all Reading residents live in decent, safe homes.

"Following this week’s horrific fire at Grenfell Tower in West London, I am sure like us your thoughts quickly turned to fire safety at tower blocks in Reading. This note is to provide you with a level of reassurance around existing fire safety measures in place. We hope it will help to answer any initial questions or concerns you may have.

The Council has three 14-storey blocks of flats in Coley, and four eight-storey blocks in Granville Road, Southcote. We are confident they meet high levels of fire safety standards. None of Reading Borough Council’s blocks have cladding systems comparable to those in Grenfell Tower Block.

The Coley high rise flats do not have a panel system. The blocks have limited, enclosed cavities between external cladding and the main concrete construction. On the limited elevations where they do occur, fire breaks are in place to stop the spread of fire. None of the other flatted blocks have cavities.

Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Services has audited 90 per cent of the Council’s blocks of flats - including our high rise blocks - and have not raised any significant issues.

The Council takes fire safety very seriously.  While tower blocks in Reading differ in design to Grenfell Tower, we are nonetheless appointing an external organisation with specific expertise on high rise blocks to review management practice, fire safety measures and construction and safety advice to tenants. We hope this additional external review will provide a further level of reassurance to you.

The Council is this week writing to all tenants in the Coley and Granville Road high rise flats to reassure them of the fire safety measures in place. The letter is attached - this includes a reissue of the fire safety information which we provide to all tenants."

Red Route consultation in Reading

UPDATE: I have now had a briefing from a transport planner and can confirm that contrary to what the council's press release says the parking bays on the Wokingham Road are being changed subtly to white marked bays as part of a Red Route. This means that anyone parking outside of the bay (double parking for example) should hopefully get a ticket. However pay-and-display machines (with a free 30 minutes) will still be needed to make sure people don't stay in the bays for too long.

The council has started consulting on a Red Route along the number 17 bus route. We think this is generally a good thing for creating a more reliable bus service. We also think that if done right it could tackle the Wokingham Road parking problems in the vicinity of Alfred Sutton school.

As you can see from the plans – linked to from the consultation page – the Red Route won't impact on the majority of the parking in the Wokingham Road shopping area. This means that the double parking would continue.

We think the council needs to introduce pay-and-display machines in this area at the same time as the Red Route. The pay-and-display machines could have a free first half hour so the free parking would be the same as it is now. However it would be easier for the traffic wardens to issue tickets as they would only need to do one pass – as opposed to the situation at the moment where what they need to do one pass to see who is parked there and a second pass to issue tickets, by which time everyone has seen them and moved.

Please respond to the consultation with your thoughts.

Passing places on Crescent Road #rdg to improve road safety, what do you think?

Green councillors have been continuing to lobby for road safety improvements on Crescent Road. There are a number of streams of work, this one – to make sure they school zigzags are in the right place – is the simplest and the furthest forward. We want to get some feedback from residents as early as possible.

The transport planners were just going to put double yellow lines and school keep clear markings on the school side of the road. However, we know from what parents have said to us that sometimes congestion means people drive on the pavement. One idea that we have had is to introduce some passing places – using short sections of double yellow lines like we have created at the west end of Crescent Road near to the Eastern Avenue double roundabout. We have asked transport planners if we could have some passing places as part of this scheme. They have suggested one – as marked on the map.

We would like to know what people think about the idea of some passing places in principle, how many – looking at the map I think we could do with another one – and where they should be. Please comment on the blog post/Facebook and so on to let me know what you think. Alternatively send me an email: rob@readinggreenparty.org.uk

It should be noted that we also want the council to look at the traffic flow in the area more generally but this is obviously a bigger piece of work. Following our lobbying we hope to the council will have produced some ideas to talk to people about during the summer.

Green councillors will keep lobbying to make sure every child has a safe route to school.