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Traffic and Travel

Wokingham Borough Connect

Gritting season is here

Our gritting lorries are ready to go for the cold season between now and April 2024, helping keep roads safe and traffic moving this winter. As temperatures drop, our fleet is on standby to grit roads across the borough and have already been out and about as road temperatures fall below zero degress.

Our winter service plan can be found on our website and sets out how the teams from contractors VolkerHighways spring into action when weather conditions are really poor, or when temperatures are close to or below freezing.

Around 1,500 tonnes of salt is kept at Toutley Depot, which helps to keep the roads cleared through the winter. This is used to cover all the primary routes in the borough, with each run seeing our teams cover 273km (170 miles) on average, with an additional 96km (60 miles) of secondary routes and 151km (94 miles) of third tier routes when the weather conditions are exceptionally bad.

Daily reports are processed to set out whether the busiest roads in the borough will be pre-salted on cold evenings and/or supplemented with additional gritting on secondary routes if a prolonged period of hazardous weather is expected.

If heavy snow does fall this winter, routes are cleared in descending order of priority, with the most used roads cleared first. A full list of primary, secondary and third tier roads can be found in the winter service plan, which also includes the 47 salt bins we keep topped up, as well as locations such as outside schools and cycleways, which will be gritted if the weather requires this to happen.

Santa Claus is coming to town

This Sunday (3 December) will see Wokingham borough play host to the record-breaking Reading Toy Run.

The annual event sees hundreds of bikers in fancy dress travel in convoy to deliver Christmas presents to Barnardo's High Close School in Wokingham, bringing festive cheer and gifts for those in need.

There will be road closures along the route throughout the day, starting 2pm at Wood in Shinfield and finishing at Barnardo's High Close School on Wiltshire Road in Wokingham. Full details of the closure can be seen on the one.network website.

Thief caught on camera faces court

A thief has been brought to justice after we gave evidence of one of his crimes to the police.

The 20-year-old admitted two charges of stealing a push bike and five more of shoplifting, all in Wokingham town, where he lives, at Reading Magistrates Court on 7 November.

In one incident, he broke into a storage area at our Shute End offices at 5am on 10 June. He was filmed stealing a bicycle owned by our My Journey Wokingham active travel team.

We upgraded the bicycle store to make sure this didn’t happen again and passed our CCTV footage to Thames Valley Police, who recognised him and arrested him at home.

He also stole from the Co-op Food stores in Beechey Place and London Road on 19, 20 and 25 July, and 10 and 21 September, and stole a bike from the Carnival Hub on 2 June.

He got an 18-month community order and must do 200 hours unpaid work, take part in 20 days’ rehabilitation activities and pay compensation. Get advice on bike theft prevention from Thames Valley Police.

Upcoming roadworks

Keeping up to date

• For planned and emergency roadworks, follow our Twitter and Facebook pages 
• To find out about roadworks near you, visit One.network
• For active and sustainable travel, including events, training and resources, visit MyJourney Wokingham 
• Visit our major new roads page for plans and updates
• For information on re-surfacing and reactive carriageway repairs visit our pothole and road repairs page 
• You can report any issues with roads and streets online, including street lights, problems with traffic lights, potholes, damaged street furniture, problems with road markings and removal of dead animals. 
• On our parking and permits page, you can find information including car parks and costs around the borough, resident parking permits, park and ride services and appealing a parking fine.
• Our transport and travel page includes information on applying for a senior citizen or disabled person's bus and train pass and local public transport information.
• The blue parking badges page has information on applying for, using, replacing and returning your blue badge.