Published: Thursday, 20th August, 2009 8:00am

Bid to make Reading rock

by Correspondent

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Guy Douglas

Just recently there has been an interesting cultural thread running through much of the town centre work that I do in delivering a business plan to animate the town centre on behalf of around 400 businesses that make up Reading's town centre Business Improvement District (BID2).

Since I came back to Reading, after growing up near here in the 1970s, I have witnessed a curious confusion of identity as to how people perceive the town. All too often I hear apologies being made about Reading, or worse. Some buy into the notion that it is a dangerous place, or even worse, that it is boring.

I would like to take the stage and declare to all who read this that (animated radio voice) "Reading is a town that rocks!". Not just because we are about to host the Reading Festival, but because deep down there is a certain strength of character about this place that needs to be better appreciated by those of us here. I have had some help in understanding this along the way.

I have recently had the pleasure of working with local music producer/promoter, Jack Hepplewhite, in putting on the Outside:Inside Festival, bringing local live music to venues both indoors and outside. In the process I have got a glimpse of an impressive pool of talent. In looking into some of the sadly empty shops, I have had the opportunity to work with Suzanne Stallard of Jelly fame, and help her to put local art into the recessionary voids. In working to communicate the cultural strengths of our town, I have got to see Reading through the lens of photographer Neil Horne, and to express graphic identities through the combined talents of Cream and Indent, design teams who breathe this place. These, and many more, are reasons why I am cheerful about the future.

As part of the BID2 marketing plan, there are key elements that we are using to breathe life into the town centre. Food, music, an appreciation of all that is uniquely Reading and an evolution of the evening economy - these are the channels through which we will work to improve the broad cultural offer, to change the perception of the place, to attract a broader age range to the town centre in the evening, to change the perception of Reading from Jerome K Jerome's "dismal dirty Reading" to our own articulation of a hip, cool, fun place, with a distinct sense of our rich English heritage and our worldly contemporary diversity.

I have seen some things about Reading that make me believe that there are all the ingredients of a fascinating cultural recipe. All we have to do now is cook.

- by Guy Douglas, Business Improvement District manager for Reading UK CIC.

(The MPs are on summer recess)