Reading Borough Council is encouraging residents to have their say on how they currently use Reading’s Public Rights of Way Network, in a bid to provide a better experience for its users and encourage active travel.
The council manages 21 miles of public Rights of Way across the borough, which provide vital connections for many people to access open space and are often used by residents when travelling to work and school. It is important that we protect, maintain and enhance Rights of Way across the Borough. This network supports our ambitions to encourage active travel (e.g. cycling and walking) and as a result support better physical and mental health, lower carbon generation and improved air quality.
Over the last year, these local routes have been used so much more during the lockdown periods, where people explored their local areas. Increased walking around our local areas has been beneficial to our health and mental wellbeing and has also helped towards improving air quality within the borough.
Residents are invited to have their say on how you currently use Reading’s Public Rights of Way Network, to highlight any barriers or issues to increased use of the network, and suggest what could be done to enhance the network – for example, make it more accessible to all users, better maintained or signposted. This will allow us to update the council’s Public Rights of Way Improvement Plan – a sub-strategy of Reading’s Local Transport Plan.
People are also encouraged to report any historic Rights of Way that may be missing from the current network. This could include, for example, access to the private park land within the former BBC Monitoring Site at Caversham Park, which is currently on the market and off limits to the public, but some local residents claim the area once included public footpaths.
Reading’s Public Rights of Way consultation will close on Thursday 24 July 2021.
To take part online visit www.reading.gov.uk/RightsofWay
For alternative formats contact transport@reading.gov.uk.