Nunhead · south London
The best view in London. Behind a fence.
From the top of Nunhead Reservoir you can see the whole city, from Canary Wharf to the Crystal Palace transmitter. People used to come up here to picnic, to watch the sun go down, to sit with someone. Now it is locked.
— people have added their name to reopen the reservoir
Photo: electricpedals
What we are asking for
Not the gates thrown open. A schedule.
Nobody in this campaign is asking Thames Water to stop protecting a working reservoir. We are asking for the same thing plenty of other water sites already manage: planned, supervised access that the public can actually book.
Four open days a year
One each season, pre-booked so numbers stay safe and known in advance. Spring walks and bird watching, summer picnics, autumn photography, winter stargazing.
A community clean-up before each one
Volunteers clear glass and litter ahead of every open day. It makes the site safer, it costs Thames Water nothing, and it is the simplest way to build the working relationship this needs.
Wellbeing days
Yoga, painting, kite flying, astronomy evenings. Small, quiet uses of a large open space, run by local people for local people.
And in the long run
Regular opening hours, the way Greenwich Park has them. A local committee managing access and upkeep in partnership with Thames Water, with bins, benches and a maintained path. The reservoir stays secure and the city gets its view back.
The comparison that matters
Two covered reservoirs. One has had a golf course on it since 1913.
Beechcroft Reservoir at Honor Oak sits a short distance from Nunhead. Both are covered drinking water reservoirs. Both belong to Thames Water. Golf has been played on the roof of one of them since the spring of 1913.
“Located in Honor Oak Park, the club is uniquely situated on the Beechcroft Reservoir, a secure site owned by Thames Water.”
“Due to our location on a secure utility site, members benefit from a tranquil and private setting, free from public access.”
A working Thames Water reservoir has carried a golf course for over a century, and the people who play there are sold the seclusion as a feature. We are asking for four afternoons.
Beechcroft Reservoir, Honor Oak
In use since 1913
- A nine-hole golf course on the reservoir roof
- Members on site through the week, all year
- A secure, working drinking water reservoir
Nunhead Reservoir
Closed to everyone
- Fenced, with no public access at all
- No open days, no bookings, no scheduled entry
- Also a secure, working drinking water reservoir
None of this is an argument against the golf club, and we are not asking for it to close. Aquarius has been there longer than almost anyone reading this has been alive, and it is good evidence rather than a grievance. The question is for Thames Water: if a covered reservoir can carry a century of golf, why can this one not carry four supervised afternoons a year?
Enclosure, then and now
“The law locks up the man or woman who steals the goose from off the common, but lets the greater felon loose who steals the common from the goose.” Anonymous protest verse against the enclosure of common land, usually dated to the 1760s, though the earliest printed versions anyone has found are from the early 1800s. Campaigners hung its question on the reservoir fence.
Add your name
Every name is a person Thames Water has to answer to.
Nearly 7,000 people signed the original petition to take the fence down. This is the campaign's own list, held by us and not by a petition platform, so it cannot quietly disappear.
Your postcode is what turns a name into local support. Councillors and MPs ask whether signatories are their constituents, and only a postcode answers that. We publish the district only — SE15, never the full code.
Who has signed
Sign to reopen the reservoir
Thank you
Your name is on the list.
The single most useful next thing you can do takes two minutes:
Three things that actually help
A fence comes down when enough people are noisy about it.
Email your MP
Five ready-written letters. Pick one, add your name and postcode, send. A constituent email carries far more weight than a signature, and almost nobody sends one.
Post about it
Ready-made images, captions and posts, all tagging Thames Water. Copy one, post it, tag them. Public pressure is the only thing that has ever moved this.
How we got here
Ten years of asking.
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2016
The fence, and an apology
Thames Water publicly apologises for not consulting the community about the new, more secure fencing, citing government security requirements for drinking water sites.
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The original petition
Nearly 7,000 signatures
Started by Rosanna Thompson, the campaign gathers close to 7,000 names asking for the barriers to come down. Thames Water does not move.
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2022
Talks begin again
Jamie Bykov-Brett takes the campaign on and opens a line to Thames Water in August. Restructuring, lost staff and reduced resources are given as the reasons progress stalls.
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2024
Relaunch
The campaign restarts publicly, on the view that the roadblocks only move when there is visible pressure behind the request.
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And then it stopped
Nobody left to talk to
Thames Water restructured, and most of the people the campaign had spent two years building a relationship with left. There was no longer anyone on the other side of the conversation, so it stalled.
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2026
Trying again
New site, a signature list the campaign owns rather than rents, and the same ask we started with. The gates have not opened yet.