A NEW zebra crossing is to be installed in east Reading following a parent-led campaign.
The road safety measure will be on Upper Redlands Road close to its junction with Eastern Avenue. It is hoped this will make the school run easier for pupils attending St Joseph’s College, and students at the University of Reading – there are halls of residence on the road.
Celebrating the change, ward councillor Kathryn McCann (Green, Redlands) said: “I’d like to commend the council for going forward with this after quite some time.
“I’d just like to thank the community for supporting it. I think the parents of children at the school have been pushing for this for about six years, so good on them for sticking with it and thanks to those people that contributed to actually help fund it as well as the officers for getting the funding that they have to make it happen, so good news.”
At a meeting of the council’s traffic management sub-committee on Wednesday, September 13, a vote to implement the project was unanimous.
It will now be the subject of a statutory consultation, with highways officers reporting the in either the November or January meetings, with the crossing in place by the end of March.
Associated changes include removing existing speed cushions, relocating a bus stop to move it closer to St Joseph’s College and moving a 20mph speed marking.
Earlier in the meeting, the approval of the project was welcomed by Cllr Will Cross (Labour, Redlands), who thanked Cllr Tony Page (Labour, Abbey), the former lead councillor for transport.
The zebra crossing will cost £83,500, of which £75,000 will come from the government’s Active Travel Fund Tranche 4, and £8,500 coming from private pledges, including from St Joseph’s College and the University of Reading.
Cllr Cross lamented that other schemes around the town that the council bid for were not funded.
He said: “[This] highlights the success of the previous Labour lead councillor for bidding for this and the Labour council for its ambitious strategy on active travel, cycling and walking.
“It’s obviously disappointing that the somewhat opaque and capricious central government funding process did not provide funding for the additional schemes that we bid for, in which case it would have been even better, but it’s a testament to the Labour council’s bold agenda that this scheme is coming forward in partnership with the school.”
The schemes the council did not get funding for were changes to the junction of Sidmouth Street and Queens Road and pedestrian and cycle improvements for the Christchurch Green junction.
