Gard Newsletter for parishes August 2025

JUDICIAL REVIEW: This took place on June 25th/26th. Directors of SAFERWaterS, and Lisa Warne Director of CPRE Oxfordshire attended the High Court. It then took four weeks for the Judge to deliver his judgement. This occurred on Wednesday 23^rd July. We are sorry to say that the Judge did not uphold our claim to quash the Secretary of State’s decision to approve the Thames Water plan to the next stage. We have thus lost the Judicial Review. We have however lodged a notice that we intend to appeal the decision. We have 21 days to file this appeal.

UPDATED WEBSITE: Yes, the new website has landed! Please visit it and find your way round. In particular you will find it works well on your phone.  Group Against Reservoir Development | GARD

We send out regular updates to all GARD members and supporters. You can sign up to the GARD circulation list by clicking the ‘sign up’ button at the bottom of page 1 of the website.

THAMES WATER EVENTS: Thames Water has been hosting information events in four local venues. If you attended one of these, please email GARD saying what you asked and what answers you were given gard.secretary@gmail.com . GARD considers the use by Thames Water of 14-year-old school children in a video to promote its ‘proposed’ leisure facilities to be a dubious practice, especially when we have good evidence to show that such facilities pose a serious risk to the safety of the reservoir. Thames Water has been giving ‘workshop opportunities’ in local schools and filming them. Several parents have written to us and have complained to the schools about it. Some of us were annoyed at a response that ‘dealing with flooding or later problems would be the responsibility of the Council’. Let us know how you fared.

PETITION: This now stands at about 6,630 signatures. Please sign it if you haven’t already, and tell people you know about it: Stop Thames Water’s costly mega-reservoir – fix the leaks! | 38 Degrees  Last month, we gained about 150 signatures on our Action Days at Millets Farm (thanks to the Millets owner and supporter of GARD, Tony Carter).

WHAT CAN YOU DO? Join GARD, like and share GARD’s Social Media posts, display a poster or banner at your home. Write to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Steve Reed; to your MP and to your Councillors (County, District and Parish). For email details contact the GARD Secretary gard.secretary@gmail.com

WHAT IS THE NEXT STAGE?: Now that we know the Judicial Review is lost, apart from appealing, there is still the next stage of the Approval Process for SESRO. This leads up to the submission by Thames Water of a Development Consent Order (DCO) application in 2026. It is only after that has been heard and agreed that the final approval would be given by the government in 2027. GARD and SAFERWaterS will be fighting against the proposal in the public consultations to come in the Autumn of this year. We need your active support for this to respond against the Thames Water propaganda in the consultation documents.  It is important to realise that, even though we will be appealing, this DCO process will roll forward (as no project approval is given for nearly two years). So, we will be active on both fronts.

For any appeal, and for the DCO process, we shall be needing substantial funds raised from the public. Please donate.

Here are the payment details for Membership or Donations   Bank transfer to Group Against Reservoir Development   Account Number: 71266438    Sort Code: 40-45-36    Please include your name as a reference & email gard.secretary@gmail.com

Derek Stork, Chair GARD