A “GARISH” advertising screen will be lighting up the town centre after planning bosses over-ruled officers and approved plans for a 5.2-metre high screen above a shopping arcade.

Atlantis Estates, owners of the Kings Walk shopping centre, was granted permission to rename the arcade Atlantis Village and install new signs for Mix Bar and the Dolce Vita restaurant at a meeting of the borough council’s planing applications committee on Wednesday last week.

The property firm also applied for a new 5.2-metre high LED display above its King Street entrance.

Officers recommended the committee refuse it because “its size, illumination and garish character would be a strident and alien feature” that conflicts with the neighbouring Grade II listed buildings.

However, committee member Cllr Tony Page urged the committee to overrule officers’ recommendations because the large screen will advertise businesses in the arcade, which has historically suffered from a lack of footfall.

He said: “Whether we see the overall benefit of an attempt to revive an important part of Reading, or whether we see this screen as damaging as officers, I think it is actually an attractive suggestion and I am happy to propose that on this occasion we don’t go with the officers’ recommendations.

“We have here an attractive proposal — probably the last real attempt to try to revive Kings Walk.” The proposal also includes removing paintwork and restoring underlying brickwork, and installing glass canopies to the King Street frontage as well as redecorating the glazed “tower” above the main entrance.

Cllr Page’s suggestion was met with cross-party support and the proposals were voted through unanimously.

Tory councillor Simon Robinson said: “Kings Walk has suffered immensely over the years it has been in operation.

“Anything that we can do or they can do in terms of providing the initiative for people to actually go down there and walk through the centre I am fully in favour of.”