Reading Transport Strategy 2036 - Statutory Consultation

Overview

Transport matters to all of us. It connects us with our workplaces, schools, friends and families. It affects our health, the air we breathe, and the streets where we live. It helps our economy to grow and our town to thrive, and it can make the environment around us clean and friendly or dirty and dangerous.  

Over the summer of 2019 we ran a consultation to get your input to help develop our new transport strategy for Reading and more than 3,500 of you got involved through events, drop in sessions, school workshops and our online survey. Your input helped shape the direction of the strategy, confirming the core strategic themes and priorities. You can see the consultation results here.

We’ve now used your feedback to shape our draft Reading Transport Strategy 2036. This is now your chance to comment – to let us know where we’ve got it right, and where there are alternatives that we should consider to help us deliver the transport infrastructure and investment that Reading needs.

The environmental, health and equality impacts of the draft strategy have been assessed through an Integrated Impact Assessment.

Cycling & Walking Sub-Strategy Consultation

Encouraging more cycling and walking is a key element of our draft strategy, therefore we are also consulting on our draft Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) which is a sub-strategy to the Reading Transport Strategy 2036.

Our LCWIP has been developed in partnership with Wokingham and West Berkshire Councils and sets out ambitious plans to transform our streets and encourage more people to choose cycling and walking for local journeys, or as part of longer multimodal journeys.

Covid-19 Pandemic

The current Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented situation in the UK and is having an enormous impact on every aspect of our lives including how we move around. Under the Government’s guidelines at the time of going to consultation, only essential journeys can be made and pubs, clubs, libraries and schools are closed, and deliveries of goods from online shopping – especially groceries – has increased. A large number of people are adapting to new ways of working from home for extended periods of time, furloughed or unable to work – or continuing to work in essential front-line services. Traffic levels in Reading are currently around one third the level expected under normal conditions, bus use has reduced by around 85% and people are using the streets for walking and cycling as part of their daily exercise.

The Reading Transport Strategy 2036 was drafted before Covid-19 had developed into national and international crisis. We don’t yet know how long the current situation will last or what the long-term impact will be on society, the economy, the environment and on people’s travel and working behaviour. However, we will need to ensure that the strategy is best placed to support Reading once the crisis is over.  We will need to ensure the strategy is relevant to a post-Covid world and we invite your input on this issue as well as the broader strategy.

So have your say and help shape the future of transport in Reading!