Local community

• Cole Museum of Zoology
• URE Museum
• Museum of English Rural Life

The Harris Garden, the Wilderness and Whiteknights Lake.

Explore our beautiful green spaces using our self-guided nature trail and learn more about wildlife on campus. The nature trail is marked by a series of signs, each has a unique QR code.

SportsPark – you can find out more about the different facilities and community membership.

We have many pubs and cafes including Park House, the Library Café, Dolce Vita Café, Café Trilobite and more! More information about opening times.

University Library – use our library for reference and private study, except during the University Examinations Period. 

Why not explore campus by trying out the running routes created by Reading Students' Union? 

Did you know we have plenty of places on campus for you to fill up your water bottle for free? You can find them on our hydration map.

The Students’ Union also has lots of facilities to visit including Mojos Bar & Kitchen, Pearls Bubble Tea, Uni-Cuts hairdressers, Soul of Seoul oriental food shop, Mail Boxes Etc. and the student favourite Cerealworks, better known as Bagel Man!

You can find these places by downloading the Whiteknights Campus or London Road Campus maps.

Are you a community group or individual looking to book or hire a space on campus? We might be able to help! Email community@reading.ac.uk with your requirements.

We work closely with local authorities, including Reading Borough Council, Wokingham Borough Council and local police teams, to put in place a range of measures to help students settle into local neighbourhoods.

If you live next to a group of students we encourage you to go and introduce yourselves. It will help in building better relationships and may help our students in being better neighbours.

UoR Local Neighbourhood Guidance has been created to help students settle into the neighbourhood, provide information on being a considerate neighbour and prevent problems arising from differing lifestyles. It also outlines the steps students and local residents can take if they are facing an issue.

Hello Neighbour

To support our students who live in the local community and encourage them to be good neighbours we run our Hello Neighbour Campaign in partnership with Reading Students' Union and Reading Borough Council. This provides information to students on topics such as bins and recycling, parking, noise and safety. At the beginning and end of each academic year we go out into the student areas to drop off leaflets with this information. If you see the team out and about please feel free to speak to them.

We have created postcards so you can introduce yourself to your student neighbours. Knowing the students living next door can help build positive relationships and make it easier to handle any issues that may crop up over the next year.

If we haven’t posted on through your letterbox you can pick them up for free at the Students’ Union reception on Whiteknights Campus.

Neighbourhood complaints

We are working hard with Reading Students' Union, Reading Borough Council and Thames Valley Police to tackle neighbourhood issues, particularly in relation to waste and noise. 

When students arrive at the University they sign a Regulations for Student Conduct which sets out how they are expected to behave in the community, including respecting your neighbours and ensuring any house guests behave considerately. 

If you do have any issues here is some useful information to help get them resolved:

• If this is the first time you have had an issue with your neighbour, please try to speak to them about the impacts their behaviour is having upon you. Choose a suitable time – preferably daytime and not at the time of a party or when alcohol has been consumed. Keep it friendly and informal and try to agree some boundaries. If you can resolve this through a discussion, this is more likely to lead to a positive relationship between you and your neighbours.
• If you know the landlord or letting agency of your neighbours, you could also consider contacting them directly so that they can speak to their tenants.
• Excessive noise or anti-social behaviour:
  • Call the local police on 101 or 999 if it’s an emergency or email RedlandswithParkNHPT@thamesvalley.police.uk.
  • Visit Reading Borough Council’s page on advice for dealing with noise nuisance.
  • Record the noise using The Noise App which can be downloaded for free.
  • Report the anti-social behaviour on the Reportable app which can be downloaded for free.
  • Call On-Campus Security on their 24-hour line to ask them to pass messages to the University Street Wardens if the issue is off-campus or to attend any issues on campus property – 0118 378 7799.
• Excess waste, fly-tipping & litter:
  • Download the Love Clean Reading app and report the issue.
  • Report the issue to Reading Borough Council using this form.
  • You can find out more about fly-tipping on the Reading Borough Council page. 
• You can also report neighbourhood complaints to us by emailing community@reading.ac.uk or calling 0118 378 3279 or 0118 378 3577. We take all complaints seriously and each will be investigated. If the University can identify the students we will consider carrying out disciplinary so it’s helpful if you are able to provide us with evidence if you feel comfortable doing so. We can also inform Thames Valley Police and Reading Borough Council to also investigate the matter.

Since 2018, the highly trained and highly visible team have patrolled residential streets around the edges of campus in Redlands and Park wards between 10pm and 4am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. At busy bus stops the team encourages students to queue in an orderly manner, and keep noise volumes down. They also encourage students to recycle any bottles/glass before they board the bus or to take empties home with them.

The team will also support any vulnerable students who may have lost their friends, or are having trouble getting home late at night.

The University Street Support Team works in the following areas:

• Queen’s Drive entrance/exit to campus, including Northcourt Avenue and Christchurch Green bus stop 
• Melrose Avenue and surrounding streets, including Melrose Avenue bus stop 
• Erleigh Road and surrounding streets 

If you see the team patrolling, please do stop and speak to them - they will listen to any concerns about poor behaviour on residential streets, and attend to issues if possible. Please note the team does not have police powers and cannot caution, arrest or disperse crowds. They also have no powers to close down excessively noisy house parties. If you experience these issues you should call the Thames Valley Police on 999 for an emergency or 101 for non-emergency issues.

The Community Action Partnership is an internal, collaborative forum made up of nearly 100 University and Reading University Students’ Union staff and students to coordinate and share their work around community engagement and identify ways to work in partnership with individuals, community groups and organisations in Reading. 

In 2021 we carried out a listening exercise to identify how we can share our knowledge and resources to support external communities affected by the pandemic, meeting with over 40 community organisations including grassroots groups, charities and local agencies, such as Alliance for the Cohesion of Racial Equality (ACRE), charities such as Get Berkshire Active and local agencies including Reading Borough Council.

The Participation Lab 

Aims to co-produce knowledge with communities and practitioners, provide research training and build capacity within and beyond the University of Reading. 

Established in 2016 by core members of the Human Geography Research Cluster, Sally Lloyd-Evans, Hilary Geoghegan and Ruth Evans with an Advisory Group of key partner organisations and practitioners, student representatives and staff, we  held our first Advisory Group meeting in September 2016. Since then, we have developed our activities and research in Reading through on-going partnership work with Reading Borough Council, Alliance for Cohesion and Racial Equality Equality, Reading City of Sanctuary and Reading Refugee Support Group and other third sector organisations.

Re-imagining the high street through your stories

This storytelling pilot project explores people’s stories of life on Oxford Road in Reading. Through community engagement with local residents and businesses it gives them a key role in deciding what they want to see happening on their high street, celebrating local heritage and the rich multicultural history of the area.

You can find out more about the project and check out the online exhibition.

The project was shortlisted for the University Research Engagement and Impact Awards 2022.

More information about the shortlisting. 

Whitley Researchers 

A partnership between Whitley Community Development Association, local residents and the University of Reading, empowering local residents to conduct their own research, voice their own needs and devise solutions to local issues.

Interested in why we work with local communities? Read this blog produced by Alice Mpofu-Coles and students about why community engagement with BAMER (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee) people is important in higher education.

The scheme forms part of the University's commitment to working with and supporting the local community. When initially launched in 2021, the Community Fund only supported projects within the Reading area. The scheme has now been expanded to broaden the benefit to communities across the Thames Valley region.
The Community Fund will provide one-off, small awards (in the region of £1,000 per year), as well as larger awards (up to a maximum of £10,000 per year), on a one-off or multi-year basis.

Examples of projects previously supported include:

• Helping a mixed ability rugby club expand
• Funding vital supplies for a homeless charity
• Supporting a multilingual storytelling project for local nurseries
• Funding specialist equipment for an air quality in schools project
• Supporting a refugee football team

How to apply for funding

Applications for Community Fund awards are now open.

University staff members are invited to apply for funding before the deadline of 30 June. Colleagues should review the guidance notes before making an application. 
The panel will meet in September to review and decide on the award applications.

We endorse the City of Sanctuary charter, recently renewed our pledge to Reading City of Sanctuary, and signed the national organisational pledge to City of Sanctuary. We are currently working to achieve the University of Sanctuary Award. 

Coffee bank for sanctuary seekers in campus cafes 

We are delighted to support the Reading City of Sanctuary Coffee Bank initiative in cafés on campus. Instead of ordering your usual cappuccino, buy two drinks and leave one in the bank to support local sanctuary seekers and Reading City of Sanctuary!

If you are a local sanctuary seeker you can visit one of our cafes and receive a hot drink from the bank. If you or someone you know is a sanctuary seeker then get in touch at community@reading.ac.uk to receive a coffee bank card.

If you are a sanctuary seeker or are interested in this work you can find out more.