University of Reading Learning Garden Opens Free Saturday

Reading sits where the Kennet runs into the Thames, which is why there has been a town here for a very long time and why it has always been busy with other people’s business. It is a working place before it is anything else, and the news that counts here tends to be about housing, roads, schools and money rather than anything picturesque.

Reading Daily covers it from the record. Council decisions and accounts, every application on the planning register, the crime figures the police put out street by street, the hygiene ratings from every inspection: all of it is published, and almost none of it is read. We go through it and set out what it says for the town centre, for Caversham and Emmer Green over the river, for Tilehurst and Norcot, and for Whitley, Southcote, Katesgrove and Coley. Every fact carries a link to its source.

The other half of the job is less interesting and gets used far more: when the bins go out, what an hour in the car park costs, which band a given street falls in. We keep all of it checked and dated.

Start here

• Local Info: bin collection days, parking, council tax bands, house prices, trains to London and roadworks.
• News: what the council’s own record shows, including planning applications.
• What’s On: things to do in Reading plus listings for the town and the neighbourhoods around it.