by Denis Hall
A bypass to the M4 around Reading in Berkshire — encompassing a £3bn expansion of the town — has been put forward as a solution to the continued growth that threatens to strangle the region’s infrastructure.
Ian Campbell, senior partner at Thames Valley agents Campbell Gordon, predicts that by the end of the 1990s the M4 around Reading will have become hopelessly over-crowded.
“If the motorway is to continue to perform its primary purpose as a long-distance national road it will have to be diverted south of Reading,” he argues.
If the M4 were to be diverted as proposed, an area of as much as 20,000 acres would divide the old and new motorways. Some 15% of this land should be used, Mr Campbell argues, to accommodate the future expansion of the region.
Money for the development of the 1,000 to 3,000 acres earmarked for a new suburb would be raised by a development corporation-type body. This body would have compulsory purchase powers to buy land in the area at agricultural land use values with a substantial premium. The land would then be sold as potential development sites — currently selling at about £1m an acre — and the resulting capital acquired would be invested in the creation of the “new town” infrastructure.
Mr Campbell points out that Environment Secretary Nicholas Ridley has now decided to support Berkshire council’s proposal to slow down the rate of growth.
But Mr Campbell believes that in fact rents, land and house prices will continue to rise as increased economic pressure results in increased congestion.
“The consequence will be a decline in the environment and overstretched public services,” he concludes. “Is this what Bershire residents want?”
