EDITOR'S NOTE
Festival week. Ninety thousand people arrive on our doorstep from Wednesday, the town centre changes character for four days, and the roads get interesting. If you're going, this is your week. If you're not, this is your guide to working around it — and the good news is Monday and Tuesday are the two nicest days of the week, before the weather turns.
FEATURED THIS WEEK
Reading Festival — Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 August, Little John's Farm, Richfield Avenue
Six co-headliners — Charli XCX, Chase & Status, Dave, Florence & The Machine, Fontaines D.C. and Raye — in the first all-British-and-Irish headline bill in 25 years. Thursday is the big arrival day; day tickets run Friday to Sunday. Tickets and set times at readingfestival.com →
BEST FOR KIDS
Last week of the summer holidays. Basildon Park's Summer of Play runs daily to Sunday 30 August — free games and activities in the National Trust grounds, normal admission applies. Worth knowing if you're counting down: Rivermead's soft play shuts on Monday for the festival and doesn't reopen until 1 September.
NEW THIS WEEK
Reading's longest-empty shopfront is finally coming back. Aperino, a new Italian restaurant from the team behind Tasty Greek Souvlaki in Market Place, has won its licence and planning consent for the ground floor of the Bristol & West Arcade — a unit vacant since 2007. Fit-out starts in September, with the owner hoping to open before Christmas.
HEADS UP
Rivermead Leisure Centre closes in stages this week. Soft play and café from Monday 24 August; gym and swimming from 6am Wednesday 26 August. Everything reopens Tuesday 1 September. The sports hall and studios have already gone. Plan your week around it if that's your pool.
👨👩👧 Things To Do
Kids & Family
Summer of Play, Basildon Park — final week. Free family games and activities in the grounds, daily to Sunday 30 August. Normal admission applies.
48-Hour Film Challenge deadline, Monday 24 August. Teams who took up Reading Biscuit Factory and Framespotting Films' challenge have until Monday to deliver their shorts. If you entered, the clock is nearly out.
Wet-weather backup. Reading Museum and the town's libraries are free, indoors and open all week — useful, because Saturday and Sunday are the two wettest days of the week and half of west Reading will be a field.
Adults · Date Night
Meteora — millennial tribute night, Sub89 — Friday 28 August. Nu-metal and 2000s anthems, for those who'd rather not pay £195 for a Saturday day ticket.
Don Letts and The Reggae Reggae Show, Purple Turtle — Sunday 30 August. The DJ who turned a generation of punks onto reggae, back for a bank holiday day party, joined by Reading regulars Jack Hollywood and Bubblin' Bob.
A quiet town centre, oddly. With the crowds concentrated west of the station, the Abbey Quarter, Kings Road and the Oracle riverside are usually calmer than a normal bank holiday weekend. Restaurants take bookings.
Weekend Events
Thu 27 Aug: Reading Festival gates open. Expected to be the busiest day on the roads all week.
Fri 28 Aug: Festival main stages begin, plus 30,000 day-ticket holders. Meteora at Sub89 in town.
Sat 29 Aug: Festival day two — the biggest day, and a wet one from the afternoon.
Sun 30 Aug: Festival finale. Don Letts at the Purple Turtle. Rain most of the day.
Looking ahead: Bank Holiday Monday 31 August is the exit day — 90,000 people leaving at once. If you can avoid driving anywhere near Napier Road, Vastern Road or Cow Lane, do.
🏙️ What's New in Reading
Coley has lost its Post Office. The Morrisons Daily and Post Office in Wensley Road closed on Friday 14 August, leaving the estate's precinct without the branch it has had for years. The nearest counters are now the town centre, TG Jones in Broad Street and 270-274 Oxford Road. It's part of a national programme shutting 100 Morrisons Daily stores — Woodley's went on 19 August. An advert for a new operator has been posted and then pulled after someone expressed interest, so this may not be permanent.
A new Italian restaurant for the Bristol & West Arcade. Aperino has won permission to sell alcohol from 11am to midnight and planning consent for the extraction works it needs. Luftar Rusta, who has run Tasty Greek Souvlaki in Market Place since 2020 and spent 26 years as an executive chef in Tunbridge Wells, is behind it. The ground-floor unit has been empty since 2007.
Barclays is refitting Broad Street rather than leaving it. An application went in this week for a new shopfront at 90-93 Broad Street — fascia and projecting signs, two ATM surrounds and a digital display facing the street. A bank spending money on a high street branch is worth noticing at the moment.
🚧 Useful Reading Updates
Roads — resurfacing and the festival, at the same time. Three daytime closures this week, all 8am-5pm: Crown Street on Monday 24th, Southampton Street (Crown Street junction to the roundabout) on Tuesday 25th, and Eastern Avenue between Crescent Road and Upper Redlands Road on Wednesday 26th and Thursday 27th. Full schedule at reading.gov.uk →
Festival traffic management. Richfield Avenue closes 10.30pm-1am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights to get day-ticket holders out safely. The Thames Path closes overnight, 7pm-6am, from Thursday 27th to Monday 31st, between Scours Lane and the far end of Thameside Promenade. Hills Meadow car park (RG4 8DH) is the only drop-off and pick-up point — there is none on Richfield Avenue, and cars stopping there will be moved on. The council's residents' hotline is 020 8080 1518, staffed 9am-5pm Wednesday and then around the clock from 9am Thursday to 3pm on Bank Holiday Monday. Council travel and safety information →
Rail — no engineering works, but expect crowds. Nothing planned affecting Reading services this week. The station will be extremely busy from Wednesday through Friday and again on Bank Holiday Monday. The festival shuttle bus runs from the North Interchange on Trooper Pots Way, £1.70 a journey; the quickest walking route to the site is via the northern side of the station, not through town.
Planning — a better week than most. The Jolly Anglers on Kennet Side has been approved for conversion of its upper floors into an eight-bed HMO, with the pub retained at ground floor — the building gets a future and Reading keeps the pub. A three-year extension has been sought for the 40 sleeping units and three support units for rough sleepers on Abattoirs Road, built under a temporary permission in 2021 and now fully operational. And 640 Oxford Road was approved for a mixed scheme of three commercial units and four flats.
COMING UP THIS WEEK
Mon 24 Aug: Crown Street resurfacing, 8am-5pm · Rivermead soft play & café close · 48-Hour Film Challenge deadline
Tue 25 Aug: Southampton Street resurfacing, 8am-5pm · warmest, driest day of the week
Wed 26 Aug: Eastern Avenue resurfacing begins · Rivermead gym & pool close 6am · early festival arrivals · residents' hotline opens
Thu 27 Aug: Reading Festival opens — busiest arrival day · Thames Path night closures begin
Fri 28 Aug: Festival main stages · Richfield Ave closed 10.30pm-1am · Meteora at Sub89
Sat 29 Aug: Festival day two · rain from the afternoon
Sun 30 Aug: Festival finale · Don Letts, Purple Turtle · wettest day of the week
HIDDEN GEM OF THE WEEK
Fobney Island Wetland Nature Reserve, Island Road
While 90,000 people are packed into a field in the north-west of town, here is 30 acres of wetland, reed bed and wildflower meadow in the south, and you will likely have it to yourself. Created in 2011 by Thames Water, the Environment Agency, the council and the Thames Rivers Trust out of rough ground beside the sewage works, it is now dragonflies, damselflies, geese and moorhens, with hobbies hunting overhead on a good day. Free, always open, flat hard-surfaced path, and the full loop takes about twenty minutes. Tiny car park at the end of Island Road by Fobney Lock, or walk in along the Kennet & Avon towpath. Go Monday or Tuesday — they're the dry days.
Fobney Lock, beside the reserve © Simon Mortimer, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
WEATHER THIS WEEK
Front-load your week. Monday and Tuesday are the pick — 23°C, pleasant, barely any rain risk — then it slides: a shower on Wednesday, a passing one on Friday, rain from Saturday afternoon and a properly wet Sunday with three or four hours of it. Festival-goers should pack for mud from Saturday. Anything outdoors you actually care about, do it in the first two days.
👀 WORTH KNOWING
Don't get in an unlicensed boat this weekend. The council has warned festival-goers to be on their guard against illegal and unregulated boats operating on the Thames during the event, including some offering a taxi service. There is only one authorised boat service — the free festival one between Kings Meadow and Green Gate. The river is being monitored all weekend. Worth passing on if you have teenagers going.
Premiership rugby could return to the Select Car Leasing Stadium. Reading FC's owner is reported to be in serious discussions about bringing top-flight rugby back to the ground, several years after London Irish left. Nothing signed, but it would be a significant change for the stadium's future.
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