Reading Chronicle

Reading Chronicle:

THE council is facing backlash after approving plans to turn a Reading building known as the “spiritual home” of the Black community into flats. Reading Central Club, on London Street, will be partly demolished to make way for 17 apartments and a new ‘community space’, after a 17-year dispute over its future.

Though its iconic 36m-long artwork, which features the faces of Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jnr among others, will be preserved and restored. Reading Borough Council is now facing criticism for approving plans which will see the former community club, closed in 2006, replaced with a three-storey building and a mixture of flats.

A number of Reading Chronicle readers have questions, asking the council, who sold off the building to a developer in 2017, why they have approved plans. Reading resident Peter Jap Graham-Clarke has called for the closed culture centre to be “renovated back to its original use."

Read full story in this weeks edition (Thursday, August 3).

Also in this weeks paper:

  • Former footballers help raise more than £20,000 for premature babies
  • £8.6M Plans for library go on show
  • Cancer expert lashes out as treatment centre stays shut
  • Mayor receives honourary degree from university
  • Virgin Money branch to close in November

 

Woodley and Earley Chronicle

Reading Chronicle:

A STATE-OF-THE-ART cancer centre in Shinfield has been left abandoned and is gathering dust as the number of people needing urgent treatment soars. Cancer waiting lists in Reading have grown to record levels with fewer than 70 per cent of people seen by a specialist within the target time of two weeks.

World-leading oncology physician Professor Karol Sikora has sent an open letter to Sion Jones of Equitix COO - who owns the Rutherford Cancer Centre in Shinfield - calling for the site to be opened immediately. The facility was one of three centres, in Newport, Reading and Northumberland, which have been closed for nearly 18 months, despite record cancer backlogs in the UK.

The centres contain cuttingedge technology such as a comprehensive range of diagnostic scanners, state-of-the-art linear accelerators, 12 bay chemotherapy suites and proton beam therapy machines.

Read full story in this weeks edition (Thursday, August 3)

Also in this weeks paper:

  • WOODLEY United secured two trophies at the Berks & Bucks FA presentation evening held at Wycombe Wanderers FC last Thursday.
  • A POPULAR park has been recognised for the sixth year running
  • A WINNERSH secondary school for boys has announced that it will be welcoming girls from the next educational year