COUNCILLOR Tony Page is stepping down from his role in the council as his term as mayor of Reading comes to a close.
Cllr Page has spent his 50th year as a councillor in the town acting as mayor, after being first elected at the age of 19 in 1973.
Now he is hanging up the vestements, which he said: “Is going to be a bit of a wrench.
“I began making preparations about 18 months ago, but the step down from leader of the council and transport was more noticable.”
But the time has come, he explains: “I have seen examples around the country of more senior counsellors clinging on, often with the best of motives and in difficult circumstances.
“I wanted to avoid that, and any connected acrimony, so the exit strategy has gone well in that regard.
“I will be staying in Reading, and I’m committed to engaging in a number of projects and I have assured my colleagues that if they want my advice, I’ll be available.”
“I’ll still be involved in a number of projects, but it will be considerably less intense.”
He explained that he had been exposed to politics from an early age.
“I came from a political background: my parents were involved with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
“So I had already been prepared from a young age, and I studied politics at Reading, who were particularly involved and committed to practical, local engagement.
“Two of my lecturers were members of the old Borough council: Alan Alexander and Peter Jones, who is still very much around.
“So when I was asked to consider standing as a second-year student, I was very much encouraged to do so not only by my lecturers but by my own personal interests.”
Tony was drawn to the potential to change people’s lives for the better, he explained.
“I felt I could make a meaningful impact, which really appealed to me; you couldn’t go to the students’ union at the time without being surrounded by revolutionary placards.
“The hard left was very fragmented and didn’t really agree among themselves– even the traditional communists were considered fairly right-wing.
“It was very entertaining, but work outside of campus was more appealing, though I was regarded as something of a class traitor, really– but I managed to live with that.”
During his tenure, Cllr Page has often drawn comparisons between Reading as it was when he started out and Sleepy Hollow.
“Reading really was a sleepy market town, with rather draconian licensing laws; most towns and cities were quieter then because everything closed by 11pm.
“Broad Street was the bus terminus at the time, running the full length of the street, and the last bus left at around 11pm.
“The inspector would stand at the top of the street, blow his whistle, and the buses would leave; then the town was dead.
“But then the Purple Turtle came along.”
This, he explained, would begin to change the face of the town’s nightlife.
“They became one of the first places in Reading you could get a drink late– licensing laws changed after the turn of the millenium, bringing everything else up.
“Much of the town was off limits to the public: the brewery was where the current civic offices and the Oracle are, for example.
“So we set about redeveloping the town centre.”
How residents got around Reading was to be one of the key changes.
“There were no bus services through the university campus, even; the university has been knitted into the town in a way that it wasn’t back in my day.
“In the last two decades, however, students have very much become part of the town, which is great.
“That level of integration was unheard of, but we’ve had the last couple of vice-chancellors very much committed to looking outward in a way that in my day they very much opposed.”
So one of the focuses of the council at the time was public transport, he explains.
“I was chairman of Reading Transport (now Reading Buses) from 1986 to 2005, during which we set about moving the bus depot to Great Knollys Street, as the old Mill Lane depot was already a century old.
“So we traded the site on Mill Lane for the new depot, and the council gave the site where the Oracle stands now, and it is partly owned by the council to this day through the contribution of the land.
“We got a reasonable deal, with the development of the new depot and the shopping centre to both go ahead– without the forward thinking of the council, we might not have seen the level of development we have in the town centre.”
Tony’s five decades a the council have almost perfectly mirrored the council’s use of the civic offices in Bridge Street.
“Shortly after I was elected we moved to the new offices, and are now set to be demolished as I leave.
“I’m not shedding many tears for it, though: while it was well-designed for working with open spaces, very ahead of their time, but you would absolutely freeze in the winter and swelter in the summer.
“Now we’re much more conscious of the environmental impact of buildings– it wasn’t an example of good planning.”
He also still has reservations about the distribution road around the town centre.
“The IDR is something I consider unfinished business– it remains, in my opinion, and environmental catastrophy.
“It’s all concrete and designed without any thought to ameliorate environmental impact or reduce noise.
“One of the things we’re still committed to is some form of decking over or screening the parts of the IDR which form a tunnel around the west of the town.
“It would contain the noise and even some of the pollution, while also providing a huge amount of open space for that area.”
Cllr Page is understood to be the first openly gay mayor of Reading, and says the acceptance of queer politicians during his tenure has been a pleasure to see.
“The presence of quite a number of gay councillors over the last 20 years has been an enormous change, and it’s cross-party.
“I have to say that [partner] Michael and I haven’t encountered any issues with it– quite the reverse, in fact.”
But the new mayor also represents a first, he explains: “We now have for the first time a black mayor and a black deputy mayor in Glenn Dennis and Alice Mpofu-Coles,
“So Reading will continue to break those glass ceilings.”
As for how Tony will be spending his time, he explained: “I’ll be doing a bit more reading, by my partner Michael is the head gardener, so I wouldn’t seek to rival his duties in the garden.
“I will be keeping my hand in with local projects, however– I won’t be putting my feet up and watching Netflix.”I’m anticipating that at least a third of my time will still be dedicated to the community.
“You can’t just disengage with that.”
