The new owners of HM Prison Reading plan meetings with the public in the coming months after "considerable local interest" in the future of the heritage site - which appears to have been given a new name. 

The Ziran Education Foundation bought the site from the Ministry of Justice for £7 million in January, after the prison had lay derelict since closing in 2014. 

In March, the foundation announced that it planned to turn the site into museum and art-inspired hotel. 

Now it plans to invite members of the public and local groups to community meetings before Christmas, giving people the opportunity to find out more about the plans for historic buildings. 

Ziran Education Foundation is aware of the "considerable local interest in the future of the Reading Prison site", as well as "its relationship to the Abbey Ruins and wider Abbey Quarter," according to an update on the foundation's website. 

The statement continued: "Therefore, Ziran will hold briefing meetings some time before Christmas, and invite local groups and individuals to attend these meetings, wherein the latest updates on the overall project will be shared."

The owners appear to have decided on a new name for the site.

The foundation website says: "We will transform Reading Gaol into The ReCentre–an art space/boutique hotel that serves as a paean to unfettered creative expression, a refuge for artists worldwide who face persecution."

Earlier this week, Thames Valley Police withdrew an application to use parts of the site for training armed officers. 

Now the foundation has said it had asked the force to withdraw its application due to "concerns raised about damages to the important listed building."

In a statement online, a foundation representative said: "When the aforementioned preparatory work first began, Ziran Foundation was keen to accommodate various local groups in Reading, and their requests to use some less-historic areas on the Prison site for short periods.

"As such, Ziran briefly granted the Thames Valley Police permission to use non-listed buildings in the site’s southeast for police training purposes. ​

However, when the police submitted an application to RBC to secure temporary use of these less-historic areas, Ziran became aware of the concerns raised about damages to the important listed building. 

"Recognising the duty of care it had for the prison as the site’s owner, Ziran felt it appropriate to end select uses for the site.

"Ziran then asked the Thames Valley Police to withdraw their application, and the police have graciously complied."

On the foundation's website, the Ziran Education Foundation bills itself as a "uniting with forward-thinking educators worldwide" to create a "spiritually-informed education model."

The foundation was listed on Companies House in December 2018. 

The Save Reading Gaol campaign was set up in 2019 for the purpose of turning the site into a community centre, which held annual 'Gaol hugs' and marches.

Graffiti artist Banksy backed the campaign - and created a new artwork of an inmate escaping using a typewriter on the sites boundary wall, reflecting poet Oscar Wilde's incarceration in the prison from 1895 to 1897.