Reading Twin Towers

Reading could be set for the unusual rare sight of suburban towers if an ambitious developer gets their way.

Wharf Land Developments hope to develop a 22 acre site in the far south of Reading named Warton Grange near Junction 11 on the edge of the M4 Motorway and overlooking the A33 relief road.

On the northern part of the site will be two largely elliptical lip-stick topped towers reaching up to 40 floors high orientated to provide a gateway to commuters using the nearby road. If built they would be by far the tallest buildings in the wannabe Berkshire city - even the current tallest proposal for Reading is about 10 floors shorter.

There will also be numerous lower-rise blocks but surprisingly little by the way of stepping up in height from these to the pinnacles of the towers giving the towers little context to stand in. In total there will be 900 new apartments on the site, a new hotel, a cinema, ground floor retail and a water feature snaking through the center of the plot.

Enabling the entire development, and perhaps making the scheme dependent on its realisation, is the station for Reading's long awaited Mass Transit System, basically a pseudo-tram network that has a line planned to run past the site, thus justifying its sheer distance from the middle of Reading.

The plans are still in outline form with individual buildings needing detailed design and so liable to change heavily before they are submitted fully to the council's planning department. Even then the success of Warton Grange will depend on other factors, namely whether or not Reading can pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and build the Mass Transit System.