Published: Thursday, 7th August, 2008 09:00
2008 congestion predicted in 1929
By Adam Hewitt
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The title page of the report (in Reading Central Library)
IN 1929, Reading Bridge was freshly built, the IDR a distant nightmare, and Earley a stud farm.
But in that year the Earl of Mayo, Walter Langley Bourke, penned a ground-breaking survey of the Thames Valley predicting many of Reading’s modern congestion problems, and containing solutions eluding our own Transport Commission.
'The Thames Valley from Cricklade to Staines, a Survey’ predicted the modern problems of through-traffic in the town – even at a time when cars were often still called 'motor-coaches’.
It also lists the main transport solutions under consideration – a whole host of bridges and by-passes which never saw the light of day, leaving us clogged with congestion today.
The report said: “The proposals include a road on the north bank [of the Thames] connecting The Warren under Chazey Wood to Purley, crossing the river below Mapledurham. This will link up with a ringroad outside Tilehurst.
“There will also be a crossing somewhere west of Sonning, meeting the Henley Road near Playhatch.
“A riverside bypass on the south bank has been suggested, leaving the approach road to this eastern bridge at Kiln Farm.
“It skirts the railway bridge until it reaches Vastern Road, then using Caversham Road as far as the Caversham bridgehead, it cuts across the low-lying land until it reaches Wigmore Lane, which passes under the railway to the widened Oxford Road.”
Parts of such schemes make little sense now – especially since the construction of the IDR – but others sound suspiciously like the abandoned Cross Town Route, parts of which were resurrected by the Conservatives in their election manifesto.
Purley councillor and historian John Chapman said: “It’s quite incredible that it predicts the role of Reading in the sub-region and the things that should be done to help traffic.
“One suggestion was for a kind of outer orbital road, skirting Tilehurst in the west – parts of it were actually constructed, and Overdown Road and Hildens Drive were left wide to become a dual carriageway as part of the ring road.
“The plan made sense, but everybody in subsequent years messed it up – for many years Reading was very anti-car, and we ended up with the IDR built in totally the wrong place.”
- THE report also cast its eyes over what it saw as unwelcome recent intrusions into the landscape: “At Tilehurst there is a large housing scheme, a typical temporary disfigurement because of its newness, but we think that aided with tree planting, it will in time be gently incorporated in the landscape.”
It also said: “With the exception of Brunel’s work, the railway bridges are all ugly, though not to the same degree. Where an attempt has been made at ornamentation, the result is generally worse.”
The Thames, Kennet and Loddon also appear to have been as problematic in 1929 as they are today, as the report makes clear: “We suggest that a Bill should be prepared under which an independent technical committee should be appointed by the Government to make a complete survey of all low-lying land with the view to deciding on what parts building should be definitely prohibited.”
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