Reading Prison summit attracts more than fifty organisations
Huge enthusiasm and strength of local support in transforming Reading Gaol into a beacon of arts, heritage and culture was on show at a virtual summit
Reading Borough Council hosted the Reading Gaol Summit, which was attended by influential representatives from local arts, culture, heritage, business and LGBTQ+ communities, alongside key politicians.
The aim was to garner and harness the strength of local community support for the Council’s long term ambition for Reading Gaol, which is to use heritage-led regeneration to create a site of local, regional and national significance sitting within the town’s historic Abbey Quarter.
The Council is exploring the possibility of submitting another bid for the prison site, in partnership with other private sector, voluntary or public organisations. The summit was about collecting views and ideas from participants on a future vision for Reading Gaol. The ideas will feed into a bid that the Council proposes to submit to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
Reading Gaol has been empty and unused since December 2013 when it was shut by the MoJ. Following the news last year that the MoJ’s sale of the Reading Prison site had fallen through, the Council has now been granted a period of exclusivity by the MoJ to develop its own bid for the site.
The event featured a presentation by the Council’s Deputy Leader, Councillor Tony Page, on the rich history of the Gaol site, as well as on its context and constraints. The Grade II Listed Prison sits in its entirety on the former footprint of the Reading Abbey complex, a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It was emphasised that any future proposals will need to pay close consideration to the local and national planning policies set out by the Council in the Prison Framework and in its recently adopted Local Plan.
A second presentation, by Giorgio Framalicco, the Council’s Deputy Director of Planning, Transport & Regulatory Services, focused on the development of a detailed vision for the Council’s bid, with the support of communities in Reading.
The final part of the summit saw participants break out into virtual workshops, feeding in their ideas for the Reading Goal vision, which will be used by the Council over the coming weeks as it further develops its bid to the MoJ.
Tony Page, Reading Borough Council’s Lead Councillor for Strategic Environment, Planning and Transport, said:
“This is a bid which will ultimately be submitted by the Council, but we are very clear it is being brought forward on behalf of the Reading community as a whole, and with its full support.
“That community support – which we saw at the Reading Gaol hug back in 2019 – was again on show. There remains tremendous enthusiasm across all sectors of our community to bring the empty Reading Goal site back to life by creating an arts, heritage and cultural hub of both local and national significance, sitting as it does within our historic Abbey Quarter.
“Our ambition is very clear, but we know that the development of the Reading Gaol site comes with parameters, both in terms of planning constraints designed to protect its historical, archaeological and cultural value, and of course serious financial constraints, in terms of developing a robust business case with external funding streams. This is not something the Council can deliver on its own.
“The Council will now work on a proposal with a view to submitting it to the MoJ within its current March 15th deadline.”