A long-closed pub in Reading is set to vanish off the map as a developer plans to replace it with flats and new commercial space.
The Battle Inn stands at the prominent corner of Oxford Road and Bedford Road near the town centre.
It is passed by thousands of people each day, both on foot and by drivers who must turn there to go through the town’s one-way system.
The pub has been inactive for over a decade, with its last iteration as ‘The Royal’ closing in 2015.
Earlier this year, a project was submitted to replace it with six self-contained flats and new commercial space.
The project was decided at a meeting of Reading Borough Council’s planning applications committee.
Evelyn Williams, chair of the Reading Conservation Area Advisory Committee (CAAC), spoke against the plan, arguing that it did not fit adequately with improvements to the area made during the High Street Heritage Action Zone initiative, which ran from 2020 to 2024.
She said: “As Reading CAAC sees it, the buildings and public realm are looking better than they did in 2020.
“The proposed demolition of The Battle Inn and redevelopment does not do enough to match expectations as set out in the Local Plan and improvements in the area around it.”
Councillor David Stevens (Labour, Abbey), who represents the area, asked what the CAAC would prefer on the site.
Mrs Williams then suggested that the existing building should be expanded and sympathetically improved, rather than it being demolished.
She said: “We’ve often asked for this in relation to public houses, it’s a key corner site, but apart from not demolishing the pub, if you look at what’s been proposed, there is an awful lot that is not known at this point, we’d have liked to have seen a lot more in terms of the brickwork and the facade.”
Chris Keen, the architect for the project, disagreed with the implication that the Battle Inn building has intimate heritage value.
He said: “I’m a Reading boy, I live in Oxford Road, so I know the area very well. This pub stopped being used in 2015.
“It wasn’t a good pub, the building has been degraded by painting and detailing.
“It may well have the features of a Victorian building but it’s gone past its useful life in my opinion.
“I like to see buildings refurbished, there is no way for it to be extended in all truth.
“It’s over 100 years old, in this instance, it doesn’t make sense.”
He then argued the surrounding 1960s to 1970s buildings, such as those in Trinity Place and the Richer Sounds store next door, “aren’t absolutely fantastic.”
Mr Keen spoke through a Teams call as he was in Italy at the time of the meeting.
Cllr James Moore (Liberal Democrats, Tilehurst), a member of Reading & Mid Berks branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, mentioned that the Nag’s Head is in staggering distance from the Battle Inn, effectively reducing the impact the loss of the former pub would have.
Matt Yeo (Labour, Caversham), lead councillor for housing, supported it, arguing it would reactivate the site, intimating that the closed pub currently attracts anti-social behaviour.
Ultimately, the committee approved the project subject to the applicant Anrish Properties entering into a legal agreement with the council.
You can view the application by typing reference PL/26/0237 into the council’s planning portal.
