Holding Labour to account

Reading Borough Council ran a trial of alternative weed control methods in 2022, but by 2023 had approved the continued use of glyphosate while requiring future contractors to work toward alternatives. We asked the Lead Councillor to confirm whether that commitment was included in any subsequent contract and what progress has been made — and to commit to developing a formal, time-bound pesticide reduction plan, as Lib Dem-led councils including Bath & North East Somerset have already done.

The response: The Lead Councillor confirmed that glyphosate use has been reduced by 25% since 2024, that the current contract requires the contractor to engage with the council on developing alternatives, and that integrated weed-management principles including avoidance of sensitive areas are being applied. A commitment was made to bring a further report to Committee when the evidence base has moved on — though with no defined trigger or timeline. No formal phase-out plan was committed to.

Following Reading Borough Council's own screening of the National Emergency Briefing — a landmark presentation by ten leading UK scientists on accelerating climate breakdown — we asked the Lead Councillor whether the council's flood infrastructure is planned against 2050 projections, whether emergency planning has been stress-tested for cascading climate events, and whether the council will commit to annual public reporting against the Climate Change Committee's local authority indicators.

The response: The Lead Councillor provided a detailed response covering existing flood risk work, emergency planning, and the Climate Emergency Strategy. The council acknowledged the importance of assessing Reading's performance against the Climate Change Committee's local authority adaptation framework but confirmed there is no statutory duty to do so and made no commitment to a timeline for carrying out such an assessment. A supplementary question pressing for a specific timeline was submitted as a written question awaiting response.

Thames Water recorded 14 sewage spills into the Foudry Brook totalling 168.5 hours in 2025 — nearly double their own stated long-term average of 8 spills per year, and their first appearance before the committee since November 2023. We asked the Chair to request a written update from Thames Water on discharge volumes and causes since 2023, and to commit to inviting Thames Water back before the committee given the scale of deterioration.

The response: Both asks were accepted. The Lead Councillor confirmed that officers have been asked to write to Thames Water's Chief Executive requesting a written update on annual discharge volumes and causes since 2023, and that Thames Water has been invited to attend a future meeting of the committee to provide assurance on how they will address the ongoing pollution incidents.

Following a Traffic Penalty Tribunal ruling in favour of an appellant who challenged the adequacy of bus gate signage at Reading Green Park Station, we asked the Council how many penalty charge notices had been issued at the site since the bus gate was introduced, whether those fines would be refunded, what would be done to improve signage, and whether a disabled drop-off point would be introduced near the station entrance — noting that no exemption existed for blue badge holders.

The response: The Lead Councillor confirmed that 6,113 PCNs had been issued since July 2024, with the vast majority paid. Of 15 Tribunal appeals, only one had been allowed and 11 dismissed on the basis that signage was compliant. The council declined to issue refunds, and did not commit to improved signage beyond saying it would "consider whether any further measures could improve clarity." On disabled access, the Lead Councillor said he had asked officers to work with the neighbouring landowner on improving wayfinding to existing disabled parking bays — stopping well short of committing to a drop-off point at the station entrance.

Our response: We commented that over 6,000 PCNs in less than two years for a station served by two trains per hour seemed an awful lot, and we are continuing to look into this.

Following the closure of the Council's wholly owned housing company Homes for Reading, we asked for an update on the situation facing the eighteen tenant households unable to comply with notices to quit, and whether any new cases of tenants failing to comply with eviction proceedings had arisen.

The response: The Leader confirmed that as of 8 April 2026, 23 of the 101 Homes for Reading properties remained occupied. Of these, 16 households had been served with possession claims. Of the remaining seven, four were still within their initial tenancy term, and three had just had their section 21 notices expire. Of 27 possession claims issued in total, 11 had been resolved, six possession orders had been granted, and 10 were awaiting court decisions.

A growing number of councils — including Southampton, Devon, Rugby, Solihull, Wokingham, and Oxfordshire — have withdrawn from X, citing declining engagement and concerns about the platform's direction since Elon Musk's acquisition. We asked the Lead Councillor to set out RBC's current engagement metrics on X and how they have changed over the past 12–18 months, whether any review has been undertaken of whether the platform remains appropriate, and whether the council has plans to withdraw and redirect resource to channels where residents are more actively engaged.

The response: The Lead Councillor acknowledged the concerns but confirmed the council has no plans to leave X, with officers recommending it remain on the platform. The council's X account had 26,100 followers as of March 2026 — down 590 from the previous year — with engagement rates falling from 0.51% to 0.38%. The council argued that because posts are managed through a social media tool that posts to all channels simultaneously, remaining on X requires no additional effort. No commitment was made to withdraw, with the council instead pointing to its growing focus on Facebook and Instagram where engagement is higher.

Following the tragic deaths of Kepha Otundo and Genevieve Curwen on the streets of Reading, we asked what steps the Council and its partners had taken to understand what happened in each case and what could have been done differently, and what additional measures were being taken to identify and help the most vulnerable rough sleepers.

The response: The Lead Councillor expressed condolences and confirmed both individuals had been well known to services, with St Mungo's having made repeated welfare checks and accommodation offers that were declined. He noted that adults assessed to have mental capacity are legally entitled to make their own decisions, even when those decisions place them at risk. He confirmed a multi-agency review of both cases was underway, and that the Council intended to strengthen its approach to reviewing all deaths among people experiencing homelessness — including those in emergency accommodation and supported housing, not only those dying on the street.

Following the introduction of the Council's external enforcement partnership, we asked for an update on progress tackling fly-tipping across Reading, including the number of fines issued and paid, the locations of offences, and whether there had been a noticeable reduction in fly-tipping in targeted areas.

The response: The Lead Councillor confirmed that the partnership with Kingdom Local Authority Support (KLAS), which began on 15 September 2025, had resulted in 1,387 Fixed Penalty Notices issued for waste offences, with 866 paid — a payment rate of 62%. All bottle bank fly-tips were now investigated at the point of clearance. However, the council acknowledged that despite increased enforcement activity, the data did not yet show a reduction in the total number of fly-tipping reports.

Given that persistent fly-tippers were treating specific locations in Tilehurst and across Reading as unofficial collection points, we asked for an update on progress in concluding a contract with an external enforcement partner to tackle fly-tipping and environmental crime across the borough.

The response: The Lead Councillor confirmed that on 15 September 2025, the Council had begun its partnership with Kingdom Local Authority Support, providing a dedicated team of five new environmental enforcement officers patrolling Reading's streets. The partnership was for an initial one-year trial at no upfront cost to the Council, with Kingdom recovering their costs from a proportion of fixed penalty notices collected. The team would operate borough-wide, prioritising areas with the highest evidenced rates of fly-tipping and littering, including sites in Tilehurst.

Residents had been finding it near impossible to get through to the Council by phone, with some waiting over 50 minutes and others receiving recorded messages advising them to call back the following week. We asked the reason for the delays, what was being done to address them, and whether the Council was able to record the number of callers who gave up while on hold — and if so, how many calls were dropped between 1 May and 30 June.

The response: The Lead Councillor attributed the high call volumes to annual Council Tax billing and changes to refuse services, compounded by a new "triple touch" debt chasing approach generating additional inbound calls. She outlined a series of improvement measures including procurement of a new Unified Communications solution with AI and voice automation, improved online self-service, cross-training of staff, and development of an in-queue callback option. No figures were provided on abandoned calls.

Following reports that GLL, which runs Reading's leisure centres on behalf of the Council, was restricting access to single-sex changing rooms on the basis of biological sex, we asked the Council to adopt a clear policy prohibiting gender-policing in Council facilities — including interrogating, searching, or removing individuals on the basis of their perceived gender. We also asked the Council to ensure trans and non-binary residents' gender records were updated promptly on request and managed as sensitive data, and to commit to engaging directly with trans-affirming and trans-led organisations in developing any new policies arising from the EHRC's statutory Code of Practice.

The response: The Leader confirmed that neither the Council nor GLL had implemented any gender-policing policy or changed their facilities access policies, and that gender identity data was already updated on request in line with UK GDPR. She said both the Council and GLL were awaiting the outcome of the EHRC's consultation before finalising their approach. On engagement, she confirmed she had already spoken to the Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer and would be arranging meetings with Reading Pride and No5 to hear their concerns directly.

With Homes for Reading tenancies coming to an end and many families — including those with children with special needs — unable to find affordable alternative accommodation and at risk of homelessness, we asked the Council to reconsider its decision to evict current tenants, and in the meantime to offer face-to-face support meetings with Council staff to all remaining tenants.

The response: The Lead Councillor said Homes for Reading had made its decision fully aware of the impact on tenants, but that it was the "only way forward." He outlined the ways in which the Council was engaging with tenants, but made no commitment to halt or reconsider the evictions.

The two-child limit, introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, affects over 1,000 households and 10% of children in Reading, with families losing £3,455 per year for each child beyond the second. With 28% of children in Reading currently living in poverty, we asked the Lead Councillor what action the Council is taking to advocate for Reading families affected by the cap, in light of evidence that removing it could lift 250,000 children out of poverty nationally.

The response: The Labour Lead Councillor for Children did not commit to advocating for removal of the two-child limit, instead pointing to existing council programmes such as the Holiday Activities and Food scheme and Household Support Fund. While these provide some support to families in hardship, they do not address the root cause — and the question of whether Reading Labour will actively call on the Government to scrap the cap went unanswered.

Fly-tipping costs Reading residents significant sums in cleanup each year. Pointing to successful approaches elsewhere — movable cameras in fly-tipping hotspots as used by Manchester City Council, and a prosecution-focused approach that reduced fly-tipping by 40% in Winchester — we asked the Lead Councillor for the current annual cost of clearing repeat fly-tipping incidents, whether the council has assessed the costs and benefits of movable camera enforcement, and whether a more prosecution-focused approach has been considered.

The response: The Labour Lead Councillor did not provide figures on the cost of fly-tipping clearance. However, the question prompted the revelation that the council already operates three movable CCTV cameras at known fly-tipping hotspots, and is in the final stages of planning a 12-month trial partnership arrangement to double enforcement resources — with priority given to fly-tipping and littering. Increased Fixed Penalty Notice charges were also announced from April 2025, alongside a refreshed bulky waste service. While these are welcome developments, the council did not engage with the question of whether a prosecution-focused approach — rather than reliance on FPNs — would be more effective for repeat or large-scale offenders.

Local businesses in Tilehurst had reported a drop in passing trade following the removal of free 30-minute parking at the Dunstall Close and Recreation Road car parks. We asked how much revenue the Council had received from short-stay parking since the change, and how this compared to the equivalent periods before the change and before the pandemic.

The response: The Lead Councillor provided comparative figures showing that revenue from parking of up to one hour at Recreation Road rose from £3,905 (March–December 2023) to £13,616 (March–December 2024), and at Dunstall Close from £716 to £4,337 over the same periods. Total revenue across both car parks increased by nearly £7,000 year-on-year. The Lead Councillor said this would "help maintain the car parks and support the Council's wider activities" — making no acknowledgement of the impact on local businesses.

In 2023, Policy Committee, Audit & Governance Committee, and Full Council all voted unanimously to endorse CIPFA guidance on audit committees — guidance which states that the committee should be independent of the executive, and that it should include at least two co-opted independent members. Neither recommendation was being followed. We asked the Chair why, given all councillors had unanimously endorsed the guidance a year earlier, it was still not being implemented.

The response: The Chair acknowledged both points but effectively rejected action on both. On executive independence, they argued that Lead Councillors in Reading's committee system do not hold formal executive powers and therefore their presence on the committee does not breach the spirit of the guidance — while personally acknowledging this was not ideal. On co-opted independent members, they confirmed the committee had previously considered and rejected the idea, and that the current administration has no plans to introduce them. No commitment was made to bring either issue back for reconsideration.

The nationwide switchover from analogue to digital landlines posed serious risks for vulnerable residents relying on telecare devices such as fall monitors — particularly those without internet connections or mobile phones, for whom digital landlines would not work during a power cut. We asked the Lead Councillor what the council was doing to prepare its services for the switchover and how it would be helping residents to do the same.

The response: The Lead Councillor provided a substantive answer across two areas. On Adult Social Care, the council confirmed it had migrated 337 out of 338 telecare cases to digital devices with 5-day battery backups, working with NRS Healthcare since December 2021. On the broader resident communications challenge, the council's Digital, Technology & Change Team had been monitoring the switchover for over 18 months, with Virgin Media lines substantially migrated and BT lines in a second phase targeting completion by December 2024. The council committed to publishing guidance on the RBC website, and to including information in the June and December issues of Your Reading and the monthly resident email newsletter.

Following months in which the council had been advising residents to disable their browser security settings to access the Planning Applications Portal — advice criticised by international cyber security experts — and in light of the recent cyber attack on Gloucester City Council, we asked the Lead Councillor what concrete steps the council was taking to demonstrate it takes cyber security seriously, including progress toward Cyber Essentials certification (which the Strategic Risk Register had stated would be achieved by end of 2022/23 but remained outstanding) and any regular NCSC checks.

The response: The Lead Councillor provided a detailed response outlining work across three areas: protective measures (including multi-factor authentication, new email and internet gateway products, mandatory staff training, and cyber insurance); active monitoring (including participation in NCSC threat intelligence feeds, dark web monitoring, and penetration testing — with the most recent January 2024 test finding no successful breaches); and best practice standards. On Cyber Essentials specifically, the council confirmed it was compliant with 90 out of 96 controls, with the remaining five dependent on completing in-flight legacy system replacements and a web application review, both expected by summer 2024. While the response was substantive, it did not directly address why the certification target set in the Strategic Risk Register had been missed.