Published: Thursday, 8th October, 2009 9:00am

Victory for reservoir campaigners

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RESIDENTS and campaigners are celebrating after plans for 96 homes on the Bath Road reservoir site were turned down.

Protesters filled the public galleries and stood at the back of Reading Civic Centre for more than three hours last night while councillors debated Thames Water's planning application for the 2.2 hectare site in Coley.

Council planning officers had recommended that the planning application should be passed but the committee voted unanimously to refuse it.

They gave 11 planning reasons for their decision, which will now be worked on with officers.

Save The Bath Road Reservoir campaigner Mel Woodward said afterwards: "Obviously we are really pleased. It is the outcome we were hoping for."

She added: "We would invite Thames Water to approach the community and its representatives, to discuss where we go from here.

"Hopefully we can all work together to consider a vision that would be acceptable to us all, would be a good use of the site, be beneficial to the community, and beneficial to Reading as a whole."