A former probation office will be demolished and replaced with the first ever dedicated ‘co-living’ development in Reading.
The office building, Greyfriars House, was occupied by Ministry of Justice probation staff, before these services were relocated to the Abbey Gardens building in January 2021.
The company Elder Developments applied to demolish Greyfriars House and replace it with 266 one-bedroom apartments late last year.
Co-living is a form of shared accommodation where residents have private rooms and bathrooms, but sharing kitchens, living areas, and other amenities.
In this case, future occupants would share workspace, a café, laundry and games room, gym, postroom and library on the ground floor, and a shared kitchen, private event room and media room on the twelfth floor.
The merits of co-living were debated at the meeting where the project was decided.
Matt Yeo, lead councillor for housing said: “There’s a greater issue around what this product is and how it relates to the town centre.
“This is the first big co-living arrangement we’ve got, so if this is approved, what we’re looking at is how does it work?”
He went on to raise concern about how the building will be managed, given his ’20 years of experience in flats and university accommodation.
Cllr Yeo (Labour, Caversham) argued the sheer mix of different people that would occupy the building may present management issues.
He said: “You could have quite a mix of people in there, and the different needs that come with that.
“We’re not saying that we’re not supporting this. We’re going to go ahead with it, I guess, I have a bit of a concern, because it doesn’t meet a long-term housing need.
“It meets a longer and more strategic need for housing in one sense, in that it will provide a certain type of housing for people in the mixed tenancy ways, but it will only do that for a work perspective for a short period, they will then move on and do something else potentially.”
Cllr Richard Davies (Labour, Thames) replied: “It’s an extra type of tenure. We all accept that not everyone wants to live in this kind of way, and if it were all that we were given permission for, and if it was all that was being built, then there would be a problem.
“But in the round, in the mix with all the other types of tenure that is being proposed and are being built in the town, it offers some diversity of choice.”
Councillors also complained that no affordable housing was offered.
Instead, Elder Developments would have to pay a total of £3.566 million to the council in instalments to fund affordable housing elsewhere in the borough.
Ultimately, the project was unanimously approved by the planning applications committee on April 2.
You can view the approved application by typing reference PL/24/1501/FUL into the council’s planning portal.
The company Gravity Co also provides co-living units at a converted building it manages called Royal Heights in Queens Road.
