The street party in Western Road, which backs onto the Bath Road reservoir site, held on Saturday 5 September was hailed a great success by local residents and all those campaigning against Thames Water's development plans.

Alok Sharma, the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Reading West, who attended the party and was asked to judged the fancy dress competition commented: "There was a great community spirit at the party and everyone really enjoyed themselves but behind the fun was the very serious objective of raising awareness of our collective opposition to Thames Water's plans to build 96 homes and commercial space on this beautiful green site."

Alok continued: "I have been very disappointed that neither Thames Water nor Reading Borough Council have been willing to listen to local residents' wishes to extend the deadline for submission of objections beyond 14 September and there seems to be an undue haste to rush through a decision on these plans. I just hope that the Council will see sense and reject Thames Water's application, which is the outcome local residents want."

Bath Road reservoir campaigner Mel Woodward said: "Around 200 people came along to the party during the afternoon and evening and we had lots of fun activities for young and old including apple bobbing, a fancy dress competition, fire juggling and party games! We certainly managed to raise awareness further in the local community about the need to object formally to Thames Water's application and the Bath Road Reservoir Campaign Group, with assistance from Alok Sharma and his team, have distributed standard letters of objection to over 3,000 homes in the area. We would urge all local residents to complete and return these letters of objection as soon as possible, adding their own comments as well. The letter of objection can also be downloaded from our website www.savethebathroadreservoir.co.uk."

Mel concluded: "If local residents really want to preserve this wonderful green space for current and future generations now is the time to act and object to this application - we want to leave Reading Borough Council in no doubt about the strength of local feeling about this unwelcome planning application."

Photo: Alok Sharma and campaigners Mel Woodward and Graham Griffiths with local residents at the Bath Road Reservoir Campaign street party.