PROTESTERS sang their displeasure at Reading Borough Council over a park and ride car park on the banks of the Thames.

Plans to build a 277 space car park on land west of Thames Valley Park Drive were met with scorn by a host of objectors at the planning committee meeting on Wednesday, September 7.

Wokingham Borough Council will decide the application which sits near the boundary between the two authorities. Reading Borough Council submitted no objections to the plan but handed over all representations including a petition against the plan with thousands of signatures.

Linda Trenchard, Pat Rapley and Colm Daly addressed the council over concerns a valuable field would be lost for little gain.

Ms Trenchard began by singing to the committee, thought to be the first time an objector has burst into song in Reading Borough Council.

She sang, to the tune of Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi:"Hey Reading Council I'm worried about your MRT [Mass Rapid Transport]. You care about the buses but what of our community?

"You'll find us walking, cycling and riding by the Thames.

"We sit down by the river and hang out with our families and our friends.

"Don't destroy our special place, fresh air, quiet, precious open space.

"Don't pave our paradise and put up a park and ride.

"Ooo la la la

"Don't pave our paradise and put up a park and ride."

Click here to see a video of the meeting.

The proposal is the start of a scheme that will include a single lane bus-only bridge running over Kennet Mouth towards the train station.

Cllr Tony Page dismissed claims the car park would provide no tangible benefit to the town's congestion problems.

"We cannot address Reading's transport problems in the twenty-first century without addressing Wokingham, West Berkshire and also Oxfordshire to the north," he said.

"The schemes that are coming forward, inevitably incrementally, means we are looking to have network of Park and Ride sites that will ring Reading. We already started with Mere Oak.

"The bridge will be a single lane, designed as a bus lane and enforced as a bus lane.

It will benefit not just the 300 people using this park and ride but other services too."

The car park, which will include motorcycle storage be just west of the roundabout conecting Thames Valley Park Drive and the A3290.