Green Park is a

business park A business park or office park is a designated area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. These types of developments are often located in suburban areas where land and building costs are more affordable, and are typically ...

near junction 11 of the

M4 motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely ...

on the outskirts of the English town of Reading. The park opened in 1999, and is currently owned by Mapletree. It covers and comprises 19 office buildings arranged around the ''Longwater'', a central lake and wildlife habitat. The buildings provide of office space, and in excess of 6,500 people work on site. The site is bounded by the M4 motorway to the south, the Madejski Stadium and the

A33 road The A33 is a major road in the counties of Berkshire and Hampshire in southern England. The road currently runs in three disjoint sections. Route Reading–Basingstoke The first stretch of the A33 is a relatively new road, built as the A33 re ...

to the east, the site of the proposed

Green Park Village Green Park Village is a proposed village close to Green Park business park in Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading ...

to the north, and the Reading to Basingstoke railway line to the west. From a local government perspective it is largely located within the

borough of Reading Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway serve the town. Reading is east of ...

, but partly in the civil parish of Shinfield within the borough of Wokingham. The development has been awarded a national Civic Trust Award for its landscape design, architecture and community involvement.

History

Green Park was developed by Prudential and

PRUPIM M&G Real Estate (formerly known as PRUPIM) is a global real estate investment manager, providing integrated services for fund management, asset management and property management. M&G Real Estate, part of M&G Investments, is the real estate inves ...

on what was once an area of low lying and poor quality agricultural land. The fact that the land was prone to flooding necessitated the construction of flood alleviation features, including the central ''Longwater'' lake and the realigned

Foudry Brook Foudry Brook is a small stream in southern England. It rises from a number of springs near the Hampshire village of Baughurst, and flows to the east and then the north, to join the River Kennet to the south of Reading. The upper section is call ...

. The park was opened in February 1999. Initially

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

committed to taking of office space, with options on a further . However the bursting of the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

in 2001 led to a severe scaling back of Cisco's requirements, and resulted in five of their buildings remaining empty for many years. The park was purchased by Oxford Properties in November 2011, and in the following year they came to an agreement with Cisco whereby the latter company paid a premium in order to surrender its leases on of space, retaining only a much smaller amount of space. In 2014, the park was awarded a Civic Trust Award in the public realm class for its landscape design, architecture and community involvement. Green Park was sold to Mapletree in May 2016 for £560m.

Transport

Green Park is accessed from two junctions off the

, respectively and north of junction 11 of the

, and and south of

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

town centre. A system of express bus routes operated by

Reading Buses Reading Buses is a bus operator serving the towns of Reading, Bracknell, Newbury, Slough, Windsor, Maidenhead, Wokingham and the surrounding areas in the counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire, England, as well as parts of Greater L ...

and branded ''greenwave'' connects Green Park to Reading town centre, Reading railway station and a park and ride site at Mereoak south of the M4. Between Reading and Green Park frequencies vary from 8 buses per hour during weekday peak periods to hourly on Sundays. Plans for a

Reading Green Park railway station Reading Green Park railway station is a railway station under construction in Reading, Berkshire, England. The station is intended to serve the Green Park business area and the Madejski Stadium, as well as the proposed Green Park Village resi ...

on the

Reading–Basingstoke line The Reading–Basingstoke line is a railway link between the South West Main Line and the Great Western Main Line, constructed by the Great Western Railway between 1846 and 1848. The line is served by GWR local services between and , stopping ...

were first mooted in the mid-2000s. The planning application was approved in April 2015, with construction then expected to start in October 2016. A subsequent delay to the planned electrification of the line beyond 2019 raised fears that it might not be possible to provide a train service to the station on its opening, as the existing diesel trains lacked sufficient acceleration to add an extra stop without reducing line capacity. However, the station is now set to open in early 2023. Route 23 of the National Cycle Network follows a traffic-free routing through the centre of Green Park, on its way from Reading to

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...

Green Park wind turbine

Pond & Turbine, Green Park (geograph 4689804)

The most visible feature of Green Park is an Enercon E-70 wind turbine, adjacent to the M4 motorway, and billed as ''the UK's most visible turbine''. The blades are long, with a tower height of . At a wind speed of the machine generates 2.05 MW of electricity (less for lower wind speeds), which is enough to power around 1,500 homes. It is owned and operated by Ecotricity and was completed in November 2005.

Facilities

Most of the facilities for Green Park are located on Lime Square, alongside the southern access road to the park and opposite the wind turbine. This offers a day nursery, ''Childbase'', for pre-school children, as well as a play area for children up to 10 years, ''The Mad House Play & Party World''. There is also a Nuffield Health Fitness & Wellbeing Centre, a waterside brasserie called ''Zest at Lime Square'', an Asda Click & Collect, and a

WH Smith WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...

store. At the opposite end of the park, 100 Longwater Avenue contains the ''Byte Café'' and is home to the ''Green Park Conference Centre'', which hosts meeting rooms and amenities for various sized meetings and conferences.

Sport

The business park is adjacent to the Madejski Stadium, home of

Reading Football Club Reading Football Club ( ) is a professional football club based in Reading, Berkshire, England. The team play in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. The club is managed by Paul Ince. Reading are nicknamed ...

and the London Irish rugby club. The UK's third largest annual running event, the Reading Half Marathon starts from within the business park, which provides the space needed for pre-race marshalling of the large numbers of competitors, and finishes in the stadium. The business park is also home to the annual Green Park Triathlon which encourages participants to 'Commit to get Fit' and raise money for Comic Relief.

References

External links

*
Official website
{{South East powerstations, state=collapsed Buildings and structures completed in 2005 Business parks of England Economy of Reading, Berkshire Economy of Berkshire Recipients of Civic Trust Awards Borough of Wokingham