Market Place and High Street close from 7pm on Friday 21 August, sending 16 bus routes on diversion. Crown Street shuts Monday, Southampton Street Tuesday.

Market Place and High Street close overnight this Friday, and 16 bus routes divert around them. It is the most disruptive night of Reading Borough Council’s autumn resurfacing programme so far, and it lands on the Friday before Reading Festival week. This page lists every Reading roadworks closure that is live now, the full council programme to 28 September, and the routes and park and ride options that matter whatever week you are reading this in.

Closed this week

Friday 21 August, 7pm to 1am: Market Place and High Street, full length. The council’s programme lists the High Street resurfacing as a single night (road improvements). Reading Buses puts the closure at Market Place and High Street from 19:00 on Friday until 01:00 on Saturday, and it takes 16 routes off their normal line (service updates).

The routes on diversion that night are leopard 3, lion 4 and 4a, emerald 5, 6 and 6a, bronze 11, orange 13 and 14, purple 17, buzz 18, white knight 20, claret 21, greenwave 50a, and both park and ride services, Winnersh 500 and Mereoak 600. The Market Place stops and the Kings Road stops are out of use. Most services run instead via Blagrave Street, Valpy Street and Forbury Road, so use the main town centre stops.

The rest of the week:

  • Tuesday 18 August, Gosbrook Road between George Street and Mill Road, 8am to 5pm. Berry 23 and 24 and little berry 29 and 29a are diverting.
  • Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 August, George Street in Caversham between Gosbrook Road and Queens Road, 8am to 5pm. The Caversham Laundry stop is closed; use Elizabeth House or Westfield Road.
  • Monday 24 August, Crown Street, full length, 8am to 5pm. Bronze 11 diverts via Silver Street, Whitley Street and Southampton Street, and keeps every stop.
  • Tuesday 25 August, Southampton Street from the Crown Street junction to the roundabout, 8am to 5pm.
  • Wednesday 26 and Thursday 27 August, Eastern Avenue from Crescent Road to Upper Redlands Road, 8am to 5pm.

Other closures running now

These are not council resurfacing. They are utility and neighbouring-council works, and they are the ones that catch people out because they last for weeks. All dates are from Reading Buses’ own service updates, checked on 18 August.

  • Silver Street, London Road to the top of Whitley Street, closed until Friday 21 August for Thames Water. Outbound emerald 5, 6 and 6a divert via Kendrick Road and Christchurch Road.
  • Kennylands Road, Sonning Common, closed between Westleigh Drive and Essex Way until Monday 31 August for Thames Water. Pink 25 diverts via Peppard Road.
  • Whiteknights Road, Mockbeggar stops out of use until Tuesday 1 September for an SGN gas main replacement.
  • Basingstoke Road, Hartland Road stops out of use from Monday 24 to Friday 28 August for Thames Water.
  • Woodlands Avenue, Woodley, closed between Fairwater Drive and Howth Drive. The section affecting orange 13 and 14 runs to Sunday 23 August; the closure affecting the F30 and F32 football buses runs to 30 September.
  • Padworth Road, closed to 13 September, with lime 2 and 2a diverting and running up to 10 minutes late.
  • Robinhood Roundabout, Newbury, closed overnight 7pm to 5am until Thursday 27 August for West Berkshire Council resurfacing. Jet black 1 diverts.

Reading Festival week, 27 to 30 August

Reading Festival runs from Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 August at Richfield Avenue, with campsites opening at 6pm on Wednesday 26 August for early entry ticket holders and closing at midday on Monday 31 August (festival information).

What the organisers have confirmed for 2026:

  • There is no picking up or dropping off on Richfield Avenue. Vehicles stopping there will be moved on.
  • The designated pick up and drop off point is Hills Meadow car park, with a free shuttle boat from Kings Meadow to the site.
  • Reading Buses runs shuttle services 97 from Sainsbury’s on Friar Street and 98 from Reading Station North, stop ND, both to Thames Side Promenade. A single is £1.70 and an app-only weekend ticket is £6.50. The 2026 timetables were not published as at 18 August.
  • The festival taxi rank is on Tessa Road, near Red Gate.

On road closures, we are not going to repeat last year’s. Reading Borough Council had published no 2026 festival traffic notice as at 18 August; the newest item in its media centre dated from 13 August. In past years the council has closed part of Richfield Avenue late at night across the festival weekend, and has reinstated a northbound closure of Cow Lane on the Bank Holiday Monday. Until the 2026 notice is published, treat those as last year’s arrangements rather than this year’s, and check before you travel.

The resurfacing programme, 17 August to 28 September

This is the council’s published list, awarded to contractor O’Hara Bros. Surfacing Ltd (road improvements).

Reading resurfacing programme 2026/27, August to September dates
Road and extentDatesHours
Gosbrook Road17–18 August8am–5pm
George Street, Caversham19–20 August8am–5pm
High Street (full length)21 August7pm–1am
Crown Street (full length)24 August8am–5pm
Southampton Street25 August8am–5pm
Eastern Avenue26–27 August8am–5pm
IDR, slip road from Southampton Street1–2 September7pm–1am
IDR northbound, junction A332–3 September7pm–1am
A33 Relief Road northbound, Island Road3–4 September7pm–1am
A33 Relief Road northbound, Imperial Way4–5 September7pm–1am
Friar Street, West St to Station Rd7–10 September7pm–1am
Bath Road, Hogarth Ave to New Lane Hill10–12 September7pm–1am
Manor Farm Road14–17 September7pm–1am
The Forbury17–19 September7pm–1am
Blagrave Street21–22 September8am–5pm
Bath Road, Brunswick St to Harrow Ct23–24 September8am–5pm
Henley Road, Chiltern Rd and Lower Henley Rd25–28 September8am–5pm
Reading resurfacing closures, 17 August to 28 September 2026 Gantt chart of 17 road resurfacing closures in Reading. Gosbrook Road; George Street, Caversham; High Street; Crown Street; Southampton Street; Eastern Avenue; IDR slip from Southampton St; IDR northbound at A33; A33 Relief Rd, Island Road; A33 Relief Rd, Imperial Way; Friar Street; Bath Road (Hogarth Ave); Manor Farm Road; The Forbury; Blagrave Street; Bath Road (Brunswick St); Henley Road. Daytime closures run 8am to 5pm, overnight closures 7pm to 1am. Reading resurfacing closures, 17 Aug to 28 Sep 2026 Reading Borough Council resurfacing programme. Solid = daytime 8am to 5pm, hatched = overnight 7pm to 1am. 17 Aug 24 Aug 31 Aug 7 Sep 14 Sep 21 Sep 28 Sep Gosbrook Road George Street, Caversham High Street Crown Street Southampton Street Eastern Avenue IDR slip from Southampton St IDR northbound at A33 A33 Relief Rd, Island Road A33 Relief Rd, Imperial Way Friar Street Bath Road (Hogarth Ave) Manor Farm Road The Forbury Blagrave Street Bath Road (Brunswick St) Henley Road Daytime, 8am to 5pmOvernight, 7pm to 1am
The first week of September is the one to watch: four consecutive nights of works on the IDR and A33 Relief Road.

Two practical warnings from the council’s own notes. Access for residents and businesses will be kept open “where it is safe and practicable”, but it is not guaranteed. And there is a reserve list of additional roads that may be brought into the programme if budget allows, so a street not named above is not necessarily safe from works. If you hit a problem during the works, the council gives contractor contact details and its own resurfacing line, 0118 937 3787.

Checking what is happening today

The council does not maintain a written list of live roadworks. Its current roadworks page is a map that draws real-time data from one.network, which is the authoritative source and covers utility works as well as council schemes. That is where to look for a specific street on a specific day.

For anything affecting buses, Reading Buses service updates is faster and more specific than the council page. It names the road, the dates and which routes divert, which the map does not. The two lists above are taken from it.

For the motorway, National Highways carries M4 closures. Its live updates page would not load for us on 18 August, so we are not listing any current M4 scheme here. Check it yourself before an evening journey. M4 overnight closures matter more than they look, because the strategic diversion routes push traffic straight through Reading via the A33, Rose Kiln Lane and the A4 Berkeley Avenue and Bath Road.

The routes that decide your journey

Whatever is being dug up this month, Reading traffic funnels through the same handful of places.

The IDR. The Inner Distribution Road is the town centre ring road, and almost every diversion in central Reading ends up on it. When the IDR is restricted, as it is on the nights of 1 to 3 September, there is no comfortable alternative through the middle of town.

The A33 Relief Road. The main southern approach, linking the M4 at junction 11 to the town centre past Green Park and the football stadium. It carries the retail parks, the stadium traffic and the Mereoak park and ride buses.

The A4 Bath Road and Berkeley Avenue. The western approach and the M4 diversion route. Bath Road appears twice in the autumn programme, at the Hogarth Avenue end in mid-September and the Brunswick Street end a fortnight later.

The bridges. Caversham Bridge and Reading Bridge are the only two road crossings of the Thames in the town. Anything closing one puts everything on the other, which is why Gosbrook Road and George Street works in Caversham in the third week of August are worth planning around.

The A33 bus lanes are now finished. The fifth phase of the South Reading Bus Rapid Transit scheme, which brought a run of overnight A33 closures through 2025, opened in November 2025. It added a 47-metre cycle and pedestrian bridge over the River Kennet and extended the bus lanes without taking carriageway from general traffic. The A33 works in this autumn’s programme are ordinary resurfacing, not a return of that scheme.

Leaving the car behind

Reading’s park and ride is genuinely cheap and usually the right answer during town centre works. A return is £4 on all four sites, and at Mereoak and Winnersh Triangle that fare includes the parking (Reading Buses park and ride fares).

  • Winnersh Triangle, service 500, up to every 15 minutes into central Reading, Monday to Saturday.
  • Mereoak, off the A33 at M4 junction 11, parking included.
  • Thames Valley Park, parking charged separately at £1 an hour capped at £4.
  • Coppid Beech, parking £1.50 for up to four hours or £3 beyond that.

All-day bus tickets are £5.40 for adults and £4.50 under 18, and a group of four travelling off-peak or at weekends is £6.50. Concessionary pass holders travel free but still need to buy a parking ticket from the driver.

If you are driving in anyway, our guide to parking in Reading compares the twelve council car parks and the station multi-storey, including the two that are free all day on a Sunday.

Questions people ask

What is closed in Reading this week?

Market Place and High Street close from 7pm on Friday 21 August until 1am, taking 16 bus routes off their normal route. George Street in Caversham is closed 19 and 20 August, Crown Street on 24 August, Southampton Street on 25 August and Eastern Avenue on 26 and 27 August, all 8am to 5pm.

Where can I see Reading roadworks on a map?

The council’s current roadworks page shows a live map fed by one.network, covering both council schemes and utility works.

Which Reading roads are closed in September 2026?

The IDR and A33 Relief Road overnight from 1 to 5 September, Friar Street 7 to 10 September, Bath Road 10 to 12 and 23 to 24 September, Manor Farm Road 14 to 17, The Forbury 17 to 19, Blagrave Street 21 to 22 and Henley Road 25 to 28 September.

Can I park on my road while it is being resurfaced?

No. The council states that parking is not possible during working hours and that any vehicle left within the works area may be issued with a Penalty Charge Notice and removed.

Is the A33 bus lane work still going on?

No. Phase five of the South Reading Bus Rapid Transit scheme opened in November 2025. Current A33 works are routine resurfacing on two northbound sections in early September.

How much is Reading park and ride?

£4 return on all four sites, which includes parking at Mereoak and Winnersh Triangle.

Sources

Roadworks programmes change at short notice and reserve sites may be substituted in. Check the live map before you travel. Sources last checked 18 August 2026.