The Waterway is not a conventional business that benefits shareholders - it’s a development that benefits the locality, the region, and the nation.
And it’s good for ‘UK plc’. An independent cost-benefit study in 2005 showed that in the Milton Keynes area alone it could produce £9m pa in visitor spend supporting 225 FTE jobs. This will increase as later stretches are built to connect Milton Keynes with new tourist and leisure facilities in mid-Beds and Bedford.
Click here for further information about our project plan and timescale.
Top of page How will the funds be raised to build it?
The Trust and its Partners are exploring five key ways to raise capital funding/reduce design and build costs:
- Working with developers to add value to new development areas through uplift in value of waterside property.
- Using the Waterway to provide essential public services, such as greenspace, water supply and drainage, paths, cycleways, balancing lakes and other facilities.
- Working with public sector partners with responsibility for infrastructure, to dovetail Waterway construction with infrastructure works (eg major road works).
- Working with the voluntary sector to engage businesses and the community in new ways of funding and building simple stretches of the Waterway.
- Bidding for lottery, charitable and other sources of public funding as new opportunities arise each year.
How will running costs be covered?
Business opportunities that cover running costs will be created through integrated masterplanning of the Waterway and associated development. The current consensus is that a new Waterway designed specifically to provide the range of facilities demanded by modern water and waterside users should be able to pay for its upkeep.
An example of funding potential
In 2003-4, Partners funded masterplanning studies in Milton Keynes and Bedford, to demonstrate the property uplift potential of the Waterway. Property uplift has also been confirmed through independent studies, both locally comparing waterside and non-waterside property, and through a survey of all national studies of uplift. These confirm the Milton Keynes example provided by English Partnerships in ‘Planning a Future for the Inland Waterways’ (WAAC, 2001).
Milton Keynes Canal Basins
The aim was to stimulate developer interest using the value added by a waterside location to attract housing developers, to provide creative sites on which to build housing, to provide high quality housing. Benefits of both schemes felt immediately with properties selling at 20 – 35% premium. Lessons include appreciation of the development potential and environmental benefits to be gained from waterside regeneration, use of design competition to enthuse private sector and elicit attractive proposals, ability of well considered development to realise considerable value whilst achieving high quality design approach to public realm and providing resources for associated infrastructure works.
