Plan to keep water out of Town Hall submitted

Work to keep water out of Reading Town Hall has been submitted for approval.

The Town Hall is a Grade II* listed building, which is also used for the town's museum and register office, and was built between the 1870s and 1890s.

It incorporated other buildings, with the oldest surviving part of it being its Victoria Hall, which was built between 1785 and 1786.

Reading Borough Council, which used the building as its administrative headquarters until 1975, submitted a planning application to its planning officers last month. It will be decided in due course.

Later additions to the complex were made between 1988 and 1989, in 1993 and in 2000.

A planning application by Morse Webb architects on the council's behalf states the building has "gradually deteriorated due to age, weathering and water penetration."

They added: "Evidence of water ingress and deferred maintenance has resulted in localised decay... highlighting the need for repair and intervention to prevent further decline."

It said it hopes the work will "stabilise, repair and sensitively restore" the Town Hall.

Reading Football Club's away kit for the 2025/26 season was "inspired" by locally-made red bricks and terracotta panels that feature on the building, the club said in July.