Hampstead Ponds: judicial review going ahead
We didn't give up on the Ponds case – and now it's back on!
Sex Matters has won its appeal to overturn the decision by the High Court in February blocking our legal challenge against the City of London’s gender identity policy at the bathing ponds on Hampstead Heath.
The Court of Appeal recognised that “expert charities” such as Sex Matters have standing to bring claims for judicial review and called the City’s arguments in defence of its policy “brief and unpersuasive”.
The judge, Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing, granted our request for permission for judicial review, and is sending our case on to be heard in full.
From 2017 the policy at the bathing ponds was to allow men who identify as transwomen, non-binary, genderqueer and so on to access the women’s pond, changing rooms and showers, with a similar system at the men’s pond.
We had sought permission to challenge the lawfulness of the City of London’s decision to continue to permit men who identify as women, under a modified policy, to use the women’s pond in summer 2025, following the For Women Scotland judgment.
To bring a judicial-review claim you have to meet the legal tests for standing and time limits.
Standing
The legal test for standing is whether you have a “sufficient interest” in the decision made. This can be because you are directly affected by the decision, or because you are an organisation representing the public interest.
The High Court had denied us standing by comparing us to the Good Law Project, despite Sex Matters being a charity with specific objects focused on the sound administration of the law in relation to sex. It said that individual women or men should instead bring claims to the County Court.
Lady Justice Laing in the Court of Appeal agreed with us that this part of the decision appears to contradict the legal precedent that “expert charities do have standing to bring claims for judicial review, even where individuals can also do so”.
Time limits
The normal time limit for bringing a judicial review is three months from when the decision that’s being challenged was made. We argued that the City of London Corporation had made a new decision on 16th June 2025 when its committee agreed to maintain the current arrangements pending a public consultation. It then put up new signs saying “those who identify as women are welcome to swim at the Kenwood Ladies’ Bathing Pond”.
The High Court did not accept that this constituted a “fresh decision”. Instead, it accepted the City Corporation’s argument that it was in the process of coming to a decision in future, based in part on the outcome of a public consultation.
Lady Elisabeth Laing concluded that it is arguable that that aspect of the judge’s judgment is wrong on the basis that the decision we were challenging could be interpreted as the City Corporation’s “interim response to a relevant change in circumstances”.
Finally, she held that if the High Court was right that the claim was too late, because the decision to bring in self-ID had been made many years ago, the factors we relied on in our appeal “indicate that the Judge’s refusal to extend time for bringing the claim are also arguably wrong”. The factors we relied on were that there was good reason for the delay, because it had taken until 2025 for the Supreme Court to clarify the law, combined with the public interest and importance of the issues, and the strength of this claim.
All our arguments were vindicated on appeal. The substantive case about the lawfulness of the City Corporation’s policy will now be heard by the High Court.
Merits
Our case has three grounds. We say that the City Corporation’s decisions were unlawful, because the arrangements inherently amount to and inevitably give rise to unlawful discrimination:
direct sex discrimination against individual women by denying them access to the Men’s Pond and against men by denying them access to the Ladies’ Pond
direct sex discrimination against individual women by providing a “women-only service” where they are exposed to the presence of men when they are in a state of partial or full nudity
indirect sex discrimination against women because the arrangements for running the ponds put women as a group at a particular disadvantage compared with men.
We say it would be lawful to operate the Bathing Ponds as separate-sex services but the City Corporation decided not to do so and instead expressly disavowed any reliance on the single-sex exceptions under the Equality Act.
The judge noted that the High Court did not engage with the merits of the grounds for judicial review except at the end of her judgment and did not ask, or answer, the question of whether they were arguable. She called the City Corporation’s engagement with the merits in its response to our appeal “brief and unpersuasive” and considered each of our claims arguable.
We hope that the High Court will list a full hearing before the end of the court term in July.
It’s almost as if some judges are trans activists !!
The City of London Corporation is locally referred to as the last rotten borough in the country. Need I say more?