Call to Action to respond to Thames Water Reservoir – SERCO
All Hanney residents please respond to the final public consultation on the reservoir by 13th Jan. The last chance to tell Thames Water what you think of their reservoir plans
Published: 9 December 2025
The Statutory Consultation on the proposed Abingdon Reservoir is the last major opportunity for the public to comment before the project enters the formal Development Consent Order (DCO) planning process, where challenge becomes far harder.
Why your response matters
Every submission is formally recorded and summarized for the Planning Inspectorate. Issues raised by local people must be addressed in the project’s Environmental Statement and included in the DCO application. A large number of objections signals significant community concern — and silence is often interpreted as acceptance. Even a short or simple response is valuable.
Please encourage friends and family to reply.
How to respond
The most effective method: Official SESRO questionnaire, Questions 7–16, which deal with the core issues. Each answer is logged separately.
Or email a free form objection, (but may be grouped as a general response) SESRO@ipsos.com
GARD’s has provided some support to help with your response
The consultation booklet, written by Thames Water, presents the reservoir in a positive light and omits key uncertainties. GARD is preparing guidance on the issues behind each consultation question you may wish to consider. Please do not cut and paste our wording. Thames Water’s software identifies identical responses and discounts them. Personal wording, even brief, is given full value.
Key issues you may wish to raise
- Quality and balance of the consultation
Residents have the right to clear, balanced and accessible information.
Have Thames Water fully explained risks and uncertainties?
Did they properly describe alternatives to the reservoir?
If the information felt incomplete or presented like a sales brochure, say so.
- Impacts during and after construction
Construction would last 10–15 years or more, bringing heavy lorry traffic, noise, vibration, dust, and road closures. How would this affect your daily life, your family, your commute, your child’s school run, or your wellbeing?
Post-construction, what would the loss of farmland, countryside and wildlife mean for you? Are you concerned about increased flood risk and reliability of mitigation modelling? What about visitor traffic, up to 8000 cars per day in peak of summer?
- Can we give informed feedback when crucial details are missing and incomplete ? You can state this clearly Examples include:
Reservoir size increased from 100 to 150 billion litres with no consultation (this brings the embankments much closer to Hanney and increases the environmental damage and flood risk.
Land take has grown from 13 km² to 38 km². Biodiversity mitigation plans still immature.
No published flood-risk or dam-breach modelling.
No emergency draw-down assessment showing the impact on downstream communities.
Major cost escalation without explanation.
“Best value” comparison to the Severn–Thames Transfer will not be finished until after the consultation closes.
For more information, a breakdown of their questions and links to the consultation response see https://groupagainstreservoirdevelopment.org