"SEVEN Reading schools got eco-savvy at a University of Reading event which challenged students to explore ways of tackling one of Earth’s most pressing issues", according to a recent article in Wokingham Today.
Hmmm, well here’s my idea of an “eco-savvy” idea. Don’t put 4,500 houses on a green field site, particularly one which is predominantly flood plain!
Sadly the University of Reading, despite having many of the Worlds leading Climate Scientists doing research for them, are not interested in the alternative vision we shared with them last year. Not enough money in it for them?
Elsewhere on this Blog we have explored why the University are short on cash, and how building houses at Hall Farm is so at odds with the Universities claim to be concerned for the environment. Maybe now, as many of us gear ourselves up for the Local Elections, it is a good time to look at the wider implications of destroying our countryside?
I was reading about Sapporo in Japan recently in an article in “The Independent” newspaper. Billed as Japan’s most sustainable City I think it could be the perfect example of what Reading could be, going forward into a truly sustainable future. Instead of endlessly expanding outwards, what if Reading built up, built down and built over existing urban sites that are currently underutilised?
Hall farm is just one site, what if others could be found around the periphery of Reading? Just for fun, let’s list some possible examples: Arborfield, Hurst, Knowl Hill, Mays Green, Peppard Common, Woodcote, Basildon Park, Ashampstead Common, Englefield, Sheffield Bottom, Grazeley, Swallowfield.
Outside the edges of major conurbations such as Reading could be a ring of protected green spaces used for food, health, biodiversity and carbon capture like a, wait for it, green belt!
Other major conurbations have them, why not Reading? We could plant trees and allow flood plains to work as er, flood plains, absorbing all the expected extra rain our warming climate is generating. Rocket science? No, climate science. Something the University of Reading leads the world in, allegedly.
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