A shop and flats could be built on empty land in Tilehurst next to a café and across the road from a school.

An application has been submitted to Reading Borough Council (RBC) for planning permission to build a block of four flats and a retail shop at a vacant patch of land on School Road.

The empty land, on the corner of School Road and Downing Road, is currently only filled by an advertisement hoarding, which is described by Davis Planning, consultants for the development, as “unsightly”.

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The land is across the road from Park Lane Primary School (Junior) and next to the Mad Hatters Pottery Painting Café, 114 School Road.

Developers Chesters Place Limited are seeking to build a two-storey building with a ground floor retail unit and four flats above it on the vacant plot.

Reading Chronicle: The flats and shop would be built next to a cafeThe flats and shop would be built next to a cafe

There would be two one-bed flats and two two-bed apartments built on the vacant site.

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The site is next door to the Mad Hatters Pottery Painting Café, which used to be a Blockbusters until 2013, when the company went bust.

The school on the other side of the road, Park Lane Primary (Junior) was the first in Reading to introduce a School Street, a road closure at drop-off and pick-up times during school term-time.