A JUNCTION in Reading which thousands of people have made requests to have changed is being prioritised, a Reading Borough Councillor has said.
The Last Crumb junction in Caversham is the meeting point of Prospect Street, Peppard Road, Henley Road, and Westfield Road.
The junction is controlled by traffic lights, but there are no designated pedestrian crossings for any of the roads there.
Reading Borough Council has recently devised a list of road changes that it has prioritised for traffic management and safety measures.
Changes for The Last Crumb junction have long been a topic of discussion.
A petition on Change.org has so far received 2,183 signatures, and is one of three that have been created since 2017.
The Last Crumb junction has received number one priority, with the prioritisation list as a whole being discussed by the council’s traffic management sub-committee last month.
Green Party councillors, who are the leading opposition, abstained in a vote on the prioritisation list.
Rob White (Green, Park), the party leader on the council, particularly lamented the removal of his proposal to create a footpath from Hamilton Road to the Bulmersh Road track in East Reading.
He said: “It’s good to see schemes going forward, I think there are schemes missing from the list.
“We don’t agree with the prioritisation, we will be abstaining, but we recognise there are some schemes that are moving forward.”
John Ennis (Labour, Southcote), lead councillor for transport, endorsing the list, said: “It is comprehensive across all wards, it’s not just the Labour group picking theirs, and we’re not picking the opposition.
“It’s not a party political list, it’s a list of important and strategic issues of safety which affect a number of people, not just a couple of voters around the corner that’s going to vote for us.
“It is affecting people with traffic, and that is where we have to get to.”
He went on to criticise Green councillors for supporting road changes, but then voting against or abstaining when a decision is made.
An example Cllr Ennis mentioned was the council’s bus lane programme, which the Greens voted against in January 2024 due to objections to the inbound bus lane in London Road.
He said: “When I cheekily ‘cheaply’ for political points say you didn’t support that, it’s because you abstained. And by abstaining, you are not voting for the bulk or all of these superb measures.
“I’m really pleased that the Last Crumb is being prioritised, because again, not being party political, not being my in ward, you go up to that junction, there are five or six entrances there, and there’s no pedestrian crossing.
“The residents are absolutely right in calling for that to be prioritised, totally correct.”
Cllr Ennis then suggested that cllr White mention the reservations he has to officers, then reiterated his argument that Greens should not take credit for the changes when they are implemented.
He said: “I’m just giving you a warning there.”
The list was ultimately approved by the committee at the meeting on September 10.
