Click here for details of guided and self-guided walk information and events along the route of Marston Vale Waterway Park.
This waterway project was first proposed by the local business community in 1810 to complete a missing link in the national waterway network and bring trade and prosperity to the area, businesses are again anticipating the prosperity which could be brought to the area.
There is only one possible waterway route remaining between Bedford to the Forest Centre. This project needs to go forward now or the opportunity to complete this missing link in the national waterway system will be lost for all time as the land is built over. As part of the sub-region's plan for 200,000 houses across the region, 18,500 new houses are to be built in the area by 2021 with another 90,000 in the immediate vicinity. In addition four major road-works will be underway: M1 widening at junction 13, A421 dualling, new Bedford Western bypass and Ridgmont bypass. Each will block the route and require expensive changes later unless allowances are incorporated in the design stage.
This project also meets more than just the current local need for regeneration and creation of a desirable living environment, it is part of proposals to close a gap in the waterways which has been identified by British Waterways as of national strategic importance (Waterways 2025, British Waterways June 2004).
This missing link in the national waterway network is a short stretch between the Great Ouse at Bedford to the Grand Union Canal at Milton Keynes which would allow navigation from the North Sea to the Severn. This would revitalise many communities along the route including those in the East Anglian Fens by increasing waterway usage and tourism and bringing subsequent economic benefits for these EU designated deprived communities (source: Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway: cost benefit study, 2004).
The initiative is currently being progressed in stages as funds become available and this project is one of three linked projects each sustainable in its own right but taken together they close the gap in the waterway network.
The benefits of this project will be felt by millions (source: Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway: cost benefit study, 2004). Beneficiaries are not just the hundreds of thousands of people within one hour's journey of the Waterway; but the millions of people nationally who travel great distances to use leisure waterways. The majority of waterway users are walkers and cyclists and tourists who just want to explore different environments, tourists are willing to travel great distances to use the British waterway network - and Bedford is easily accessible via Luton and London’s Airports as well as by car or train from London or Birmingham.
As of 2007 the waterway will also be easily accessible via St Pancras International from Continental Europe and it links with a rural railway with a series of stops along the route providing easy access to the car-less and cyclists. The project will have an impact on not just local communities, but communities across Eastern and South-Eastern England and on Britain's international tourist trade for many generations to come. It has the full support of the community, all local MPs, the MEP and local councils.
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