Launchpad goes super for Nova

A CHARITY in Reading has been chosen to lead two council projects aimed at tackling homelessness across the borough.

Launchpad is now heading up two separate Reading Borough Council initiatives which will seek to reduce homelessness and provide support to those in need.

The projects will work towards providing short term accommodation and intensive support to help them regain stability.

The first is the Nova Project, a specialist service established in 2021 to help women with multiple disadvantages by providing homes and a traumainformed support environment.

The space helps those using the service to recover from homelessness, which they often experience differently from men, as a result of violence, abuse, and sexual harassment.

Launchpad will now provide a specialised, individual support work alongside partner organisations.

As well as the The Nova Project, the charity is now also managing the Caversham Road Pods, a series of modular homes also established in 2021.

They provide 40 selfcontained, modular homes where those found sleeping rough and with complex needs can be housed.

They can be housed for up to 3 years while also being provided with further support to gain longterm stability and break the cycle of rough sleeping.

Launchpad staff will be on site 24/7 to help settle new clients into both projects and work with those using them.

The charity has worked to prevent homelessness in Reading through helping those sleeping rough as well as providing information and resources from those with no permanent housing or facing homelessness.

It was founded in 1979 by students at the University of Reading as a soup kitchen, before growing to provide services such as drop-in legal advice, temporary housing, and fundraising.

■ launchpadreading.org.uk

Opening hours for bar and retail space

THE consortium in charge of the Station Hill development has submitted information about intended opening hours for the commercial units at the Ebb & Flow section of the development, which was partly completed last year, writes James Aldridge, local democracy reporter.

Finchampstead-based Siren Craft Brew has already been confirmed for a bar space in Friar Street.

A plan submitted to Reading Borough Council shows what it wants opening hours for the commercial units to be.

A gym and wellbeing unit would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A restaurant would be given permission to open from 8am to 11pm, and a cafe from 7am to 11pm, a shop operating from 10am to 8pm and a bar (presumably Siren Craft Brew) operating from noon to midnight.

The consortium needed to submit this information to the council as part of the approval of the development back in 2019.

The application can be seen by logging on to Reading Borough Council’s planning website, searching for reference 240369.