What do you know about Reading UK?
 

My little family may have the opportunity to relocate to Reading for my husband's job. Coming from the Seattle area this will be a huge step for us. However, I'm having a hard time finding information about the city. It has an entry on Wikipedia but it's not in my Great Britain guide book and searching through posts on this site is utterly fruitless. Try searching "reading" and you'll see what I mean! I just need some reassurance that my lack of results is because it is just not very touristy and not because it's a terrible city. Wikipedia did mention that it was voted the worst place to raise children in the UK, but the city contested that by citing the criteria for the decision. I hope you don't mind my asking a non-travel specific question -- but I have posted and read so many other posts here that I really trust this community and know you're the experts! Thanks.

I used to know Reading pretty well -- but that was <b>years</b> ago and it has grown a lot and a lot has changed. But there are several Fodorites who know it well either because they live nearby or have to travel through frequently. So you will get some specifics.

But my main comment is though Reading itself may be pretty blah (it never was a tourism hotspot) there are some amazingly nice places w/i a reasonable commute. All of south Oxfordshire, all the riverside towns/villages, most of Berkshire, etc.

So don't let reviews of the town itself put you off. It is in a lovely part of the country

Well, it's only half an hour by train from London.

Do you take the Reading Railroad into London?

For better luck googling (it is a tough one!) try &quot;reading uk&quot; and &quot;reading berkshire&quot;. Don't forget to check &quot;Images&quot; tab as well, and you might go to Flickr and see what kind of photos you can see there -- you can learn a lot about a place from pictures of it (something I wish travel sites would grasp).

Hi BKP,

Reading is a big corporate town and may not be the most wonderful place in the world, but it is in a good location!

1) It's surrounded by some lovely countryside. Have you thought of looking for a place in a nearby village? Henley-on-Thames is close by.

2) It's not far from Oxford.

3) It's on the M4 motorway which gives you rapid access to the Cotswolds and the West Country. In other words, in Reading you're an hour closer to the beautiful southwest of England than the other 15 million Londoners, which will come in handy when you want to get away on weekends.

5) London is just a short rail journey away, about 20 minutes on the fast train.

Couple of links you may have already found for yourself:
http://www.reading-forum.co.uk
http://wikitravel.org/en/Reading_(Berkshire)

Good luck!

DW

---

See England in a day with
http://www.englishcountrywalks.com

I used to spend a lot of time there as my company had an R&amp;D center located in the Winnersh Triangle which is adjacent. Reading is just west of Windsor and has good train connections to London. It is also very close Oxford, Henley on Thames and other interesting towns. Reading is a fairly good sized town, it has a football team that is fairly successful, and the area around it has lots of industrial/business parks (Winneresh Triangle being one example). If your husband is working there you could choose from a variety of places to live other than Reading since he could commute to work fairly easily.

Since you are coming from Seattle would it be with MicroSoft? They have a very large facility in Winnersh Triangle.

Best of luck. Once you get settled in and if you like Chinese food, visit Chef Peking in Henley (if they are still open) for some excellent grub!

I was at Reading University when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
It's just a fairly ordinary town like many other English towns
There are nice walks along the river and as others have said, it is handy for London.
Another website is http://tinyurl.com/yrhpv5

MissP, you left a full stop on the URL!

Here's the local BBC radio station:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/local_radio/

And here's the local messageboard on the BBC website - you might get some opinions there too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/england/TSP?phrase=Berkshire

Pretty much everything has been said about the place. But there are lovely villages around Reading, Wargrave is one I know quite well as we had friends there. WOnderful countryside just a stones throw away, and great connections to the west country and London. It is an expensive area to live though so you should look into how much it will cost you to live around that area. I don't recommend living in Reading itself. Maybe your husbands Reading colleagues can help you.

Sorry
that should be http://tinyurl.com/2pd9fa

&quot;Sumer is icumen in&quot; may have been composed in Reading Abbey

Also famous for Oscar Wilde's 'Ballad of Reading Gaol', from his experience of being incarcerated there for his sexuality.

The French Horn in Sonning has expensive (on my dear VERY expensive) but good French dining and nice hotel rooms.

Frankly yeuch! I grew up in Hampshire just south, and had the misfortune to visit Reading on several unfortunate occassions.

Seriously look to live in an outlying village of which there are many, and the countryside is sincerely beautiful.

Would someone care to comment on the pronunciation of the town's name?

It's pronounced REDDING

As in Otis.

We are also Pacific NWesters who live in Berkshire, in our case Maidenhead, about 15 minutes from Reading by train.

Reading is the main shopping town in the area...it has a large mall (the Oracle) in its center, near the train station are several big box stores like Staples. Caversham is a popular suburb (once the home of William the Marshal, although his estate was pulled down and there is a large Victorian manor home on the grounds now). Bars in the Reading's center can get pretty rowdy on week-end nights.

Although Henley is a nice town, property prices are quite high there and it's very touristy, esp, during the regatta. We prefer Marlow, which is similar to Henley (but much nicer, IMO) and has better restaurants (do a search here for Marlow). However, both towns are very congested during morning and afternoon rush hours due to the limited number of access roads (the line of cars waiting to get in and out of Marlow during rush hours is shocking, Lord help them if there were an emergency).
Reading has fast train service to London and is a central train hub, easy for getting to Bath in the west or York, etc. up north.
As a city, it's not that attractive a place to live. Twyford, one stop below Reading, seems more pleasant, other nice little towns/villages include Cookham, Bray, Shiplake, Bourne End. You could also consider towns between Reading and Oxford...a lot depending on how much you plan to use a car v. mass transit.
Swan around property web sites like www.rightmove.co.uk for general ideas of housing availability and prices.

BKP,

Everyone seems to have missed one important point, especially as you are planning to relocate.
Reading is where most of our top electronics companies hang out, a bit like Silicon Valley. As a result Reading has the most expensive house prices in the UK, (if you are thinking of buying that is), outside of the central London.
There is an argument going on in the media about Reading. The local people who service the community, bus drivers, local officals etc, can not afford to live in Reading and are being forced away and being replaced by high paid workers.
It does have good access to London and the rest of the country by motorways, but if you are planning to live there,.........I hope your husband is being well paid.

Regards.

A couple of other comments:

- we normally call the area the Thames Valley. Everyone agrees Reading's dismal, and few people working in the area actually work in Reading,: fewer still live in it.
- practically all English towns have their binge-drinking horrors at night. Reading's no worse than most
- lots of people whose main earner works round Reading hardly ever go into the town: they choose somewhere nice to live, leave the Reading commuter to fend for him or herself, and almost freeze Reading out of their worldview, except when they turn up at the annual office party (which is usually somewhere else anyway).
- Reading has pretty good train connections in all directions: some of the tech businesses in the town itself are walkable from the railway station: practically all are bikeable. A number of my Cotswold neighbours bike to a Cotswold station, get the train, then bike to the office
- This varies a bit by precise location: but driving round the area at rush hours is almost always a pain, and your husband needs to review other ways of getting to work
- as lostime says, house prices in the area are high. They fall abruptly 35 miles north and west: I don't think there's anywhere south of Reading where that happens.
- all your husbands' colleagues-to-be will share the problem previous posters are raising in their different ways. But businesses that depend on highly motivated staff continue expanding along the Thames Valley because highly mobile talent actually likes living in the area. Spend as much time as you can before moving (both of you: nowhere on earth is as easy to get to from the rest of the world) talking to them about the convoluted ways people have evolved for having an enjoyable life while working near a pretty dismal town
- Almost by definition, tech workers round the Thames Valley have highly motivated trailing spice, and our visa rules don't always let those spice work. The area's awash with other ways for a spouse to have an enjoyable time (Oxford must have more high-quality, highly subsidised, open-access part time courses than anywhere ever), but you might think hard about what this means for where you live.

Given the pressure on the local road system - and the surprisingly good (if perennially moaned about) quality of public transport in the wider area - getting where you live right is really, really crucial: a couple of miles' mislocation can seriously make your life a great deal more hassled.

One good way of giving yourself time to get this right might be by starting off renting a house in a town or village with direct train connections to Reading.

Losttime, I don't think I missed that point. However, prices in the Reading area are in fact significantly lower than prices in Maidenhead for similar housing. The April 23, 2007, Halifax housing report gave the average price for houses in Maidenhead as &pound;361,511 (up 19% from 2006). For Reading, the average price was &pound;259,815 (up 5%). Quite a difference.

This is a continuing trend, alas (alas for buyers, that is).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/r...e_prices.shtml

BTilke,

I definately agree with you there.

I live in Wokingham, which is a town a few miles and 10 minutes on the train from Reading.

Reading gets a bad write up - but I like it. Having said that, I don't live in Reading, just near it, and find it to be a place for good shopping etc. Its a functional place, not aesthetically pleasing! I wouldn't choose to live in Reading, but surrounding villages and towns are better options. Since Reading has excellent rail links, it can be easy to get into the town centre (the roads can be very busy - I never drive in).

So the answer is, don't live in Reading, just near it. Many lovely towns/villages have been put forward already. Of course, I am biased, but I'd throw Wokingham into the mix as well, if you are looking for a slightly larger market town with more facilities than a village. I think Wargrave (already mentioned) looks like a lovely place to live too. South of Reading are some nice towns too, such as Hartley Witney.

I also think where to live does depend if your husband will be working in the centre of Reading or on the outskirts. In the centre of town, taking the train in is the best option, so as flanner says, a town with a good train link to Reading is a good idea. If on the outskirts, driving may be easier and this will affect where you want to live as you probably don't want to live south of Reading if working on the north side, and vice versa.

Don't forget about the great music festival every August!

http://www.readingfestival.com/lineup/

For more info from an expat point of view, you might want to check the FAWCO sites. There is a Thames Valley club:
http://www.tvawc.com/ There is a yahoo group on American xpats in the UK as well; reading their posts might give you some ideas of the good and bad of expat life in the UK.

Also look into banking issues. We have heard from other American expats that opening a bank account in the UK and getting credit cards from UK banks could be difficult the first year in the UK. We didn't have the problem, but something to be aware of.

Will your husband's employer pay for private (public) schools or is it assumed that your kids would go to the
public (state) schools? Will they provide housing assistance? Pay for private health care?

We have a relative who has been asked repeatedly to transfer to the company's offices in Abingdon (near Oxford) or Cambridge--but only if he agrees to a 30% pay cut! Needless to say, he's turned them down. With a weak dollar, make sure the total compensation package allows you to have roughly the same standard of living you have now (bearing in mind the differences in housing stock and also your tax burden).

Finally, remember that if you rent, you will pay not only the rent but (in most cases) the utilities and the council tax as well--find out how much the annual council tax is on any properties you're interested in. For example, our council tax is about an extra &pound;116 (about $235) per month on top of the rent.

'domicile of origin' - your new best friend...especially if you have a microsoft fortune.

Odd that BKP has never repsonded to any of these helpful posts.

Flanneruk - what a fantastic post, but how on earth did you come up with the plural 'spice'? I had to reread once I worked out what you were on about.

Wow. I am so amazed by all of these helpful responses! I apologize for not responding sooner but my life is a little crazy at the moment. So, I gather that the general consensus is to live outside of Reading. My husband's job will be on the outskirts so I think we will need a car. To be honest, I really can't imagine a life without a car. How American! I guess that is the point of this adventure, right?
I do have a question about schools, if you aren't too tired of answering! My son has just turned 2. Here, we would enroll him in preschool at 3. When does the standard school career start in England? I don't know what our company will provide in terms of education. All we know is the salary, the level, and that a relocation package is coming! Honestly, I would have made any sort of deal for the chance to live outside of the states.
I am so grateful that you took the time to quiet my fears! Knowing that the area surrounding Reading is nice has helped a lot. There is so much to do that having that off my plate will allow me to move on to the rest of our list!

BTilke -- Thank you so much for your specific information! I don't know why, but knowing that there are other PNW'ers over there makes me feel comfortable. The website for the Thames Valley American Women's Club was perfect. The moment I saw that they had a book club I knew I would be alright. I'm not planning on being an isolationist -- I am there to experience a new culture, but still, a little bit of home goes a long way! Thanks again.

BKP:

I don't think anyone's suggesting you live without a car - though it can be done. What I'm suggesting is that you shouldn't let your planning be based on assumptions like:
- your husband must drive to work, because you can then easily have your life undermined by his dominant need to get to work before the traffic builds up, or
- that you need to plan and budget for two cars

owain:
Sorry: by analogy with mice, it's a running piece of private language among many of my friends. I forgot most of the world speaks ordinary English

I often wondered why the plural of spouse wasn't spice. But that was before Victoria Beckham et al.

Children in England start formal school (three Rs) at &quot;rising&quot; 5. That's younger than in most other countries.

Ofsted http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/
is the body that inspects schools in the UK
Type nursery schools Reading in the search box and then scroll down to the list of Service Provider Pages towards the bottom of the page.
You will see details and reports.
Some of the reports will be a bit out of date because Ofsted do not inspect every year.
You could also search under playgroups Reading or preschool Reading.
Usually, a playgroup will be less formal than a nursery school and parents are usually more involved. You might quite like that because you will get to meet English parents.
They vary a lot. Some will just have supervised play, but others will teach things like colours, shapes, how to write their name etc.

French Wags are known as Fepas which sounds like &quot;fais pas&quot;

pre-school type stuff starts at 3. this is when you get government help with the cost (you may not be entitled to this as a temporary visa holder). generally speaking they fund about 12 hours of 'classroom' time per week. the rest is considered daycare and there's no help for that.

daycare/pre-school - expect to pay &pound;45-65 per day.

living in berkshire, surrey, etc without a car is difficult and you would not have a good quality of life, imo. at least one car is good to have for shopping and getting away at the weekends. trains may be good for commuting (if you select your home's location with this in mind) but they can be very inconvenient and expensive for leisure travelling. as an expat, feeling 'stranded' where you live is a good way to make this adventure fail. the more well connected your suburban train station is, the higher the housing cost and (generally) the less nice it is - eg. reading, slough, basingstoke, etc.

a few things to keep in mind -

in the uk, there is no 'tax deduction' for children as in the US. children are, instead, subsidised with a child benefit paid weekly/monthly (yes, inefficient and costly to administer). the problem is that you may not be eligible for this as it is considered a benefit rather than just part of the tax calculation.

get an offshore account and put all the money that you save in it. you don't need to pay UK tax on investments/bank accounts held outside of the UK (as long as you don't remit the money back to the UK).

if you do buy a house -
you also cannot deduct mortgage interest in the UK as you can in the US (you used to be able to do this). also, you must pay stamp duty on a house purchase - for an average home this will be about &pound;7,500 to &pound;15,000.

&quot;...living in berkshire, surrey, etc without a car is difficult.&quot;

We've managed without a car in Berkshire for over 2.5 years and it hasn't caused us undue suffering. We either walk, take the bus (or train if going outside the immediate Mhead area), or use one of the many taxi services in town. What we spend on taxis per month is probably less than what we'd spend on insurance and petrol combined. There is even a pet taxi service which we used for a couple of vet emergencies.

Not every American is addicted to the automobile.

However, with a child, having a car is a lot more convenient. But if you pick a town with good local shopping and services (like Marlow or even Windsor, for example, with plentiful restaurants, shops, mass transit links and riverside paths and parks), you and your husband can probably make do quite well with just one car.

Don't be surprised if your neighbors hector you not to buy a new car, but to get one slightly used instead....we will get a car one of these days and our neighbors are all urging us to buy something used from one of those big places in Slough.