A plan for 600 new apartments in Reading town centre has been revealed, but concern has been raised over how affordable they will be.
The consortium in charge of the Station Hill development has put its plans for new apartments that will be built on a site bounded by Greyfriars Road and Garrard Street.
The project, called Phase 3A of Station Hill, will involve the demolition of Xafinity House in Greyfriars Road to clear the way for 600 new apartments in two new buildings.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service attended a public exhibition of the project at ONE Station Hill.
The development will be made up of one, two and three-bedroom apartments, of which 75 will be reserved as affordable homes offered at discounted rent for key workers.
A neighbour called Paul, who lives in the town centre, had a mixed review of the project.
While he praised the designs, he criticised the built-to-rent (BTR) residential tenure.
BTR schemes involve one company providing and managing the apartments, with no opportunities for ownership.
Studies have indicated that BTR schemes are 10-15 per cent more expensive than private rental homes.
Paul said: “I think it will be very nice, its target audience is, of course, young working professionals with good incomes. So that’s who it’s targeting, not so much families, not so much average earners, because they will not be able to afford the rents.
“Reading has a lot of new properties, but they are not for families; they are flats for working professionals, either without kids or one small child.”
He also expressed concern that BTR schemes will soon dominate Reading, with examples being the approved plan for 170 apartments by John Lewis, and 103 apartments that will replace the Cosmo in Friar Street.
Currently, the BTR sector makes up approximately two per cent of the UK’s total private rented sector.
John Badman, residential practice leader at Gensler, the lead architect, pointed out that ONE Station Hill has won a British Council for Offices (BCO) award for the best commercial workspace, and Ebb&Flow was named the best place to live in Reading by HomeView.
He argued the consortium Lincoln MGT has proved its record of delivery so far, and will continue to do so in future phases of the development.
Mr Badman said: “We’ve delivered an art trail, 600 units within world-class residential buildings, what we want to do is more of that.
“Lincoln came with a vision, they have delivered half of it, we want to deliver the other half, we’ve got award-winning buildings of a high quality that are loved by the people who are living in them, and appreciated by the people who are working on them, and we are bringing a public realm to Reading which is really exemplifying what we are trying to do in bringing mixed use to the town centre, which is what Reading [council] want us to do.”
The public exhibition continues at ONE Station Hill between 10am to 4pm today (Saturday, November 8), with exhibition boards being on display until Monday, November 24.
