Click here for FAQs about the MK Waterway Park.
This project will create a linear Water Park for Milton Keynes, running from the Grand Union Canal in the centre eastwards to the edge of the new city. It will make a life-changing difference to the people in the area and beyond, because it will
- Create a major, conspicuous, well-known landmark feature for the area, helping to make it a “place” rather than merely a suburb
- Help people live healthier lives by creating an outdoor, healthy leisure facility appealing to all the family and all families, with lots of different things to do
- Contribute to the ecology and bio-diversity of the area, with carefully planned areas both in the water and on the land
- Provide a major educational resource for the new city and surrounding area
- Contribute to the water management of the area, especially run-off management and flood avoidance for homes and businesses nearby
- Contribute to the economy of the area
So the project will help the growing number of people in the Milton Keynes region to live healthier, happier lives in a better educated, more prospering, more sustainable area.
Top of page Where exactly will the Waterway Park be built?
This map (in separate PDF file) shows the location of the Waterway Park.
The locations of reedbeds & landscaping, and areas for picnics and other activities, are yet to be determined. The eastern half of the Waterway Park might appear to run through fields, but this is MK’s Eastern Expansion Area, due to be entirely urbanised over the next 3-4 years, with some 5000 new houses and a massive logistics/employment area.
There are more pictures in a downloadable PDF file 1.2Mb. Click here
First Interpretation Boards Erected - June 2007
The first of 4 interpretation boards was set in concrete at the site of the junction with the Grand Union Canal in March by the team of volunteers who have been marking the route with posts.
Two other boards, at Willen Lake and by Broughton Brook were sited the following week but the fourth board at Kingston Bridge will have to wait until major construction works have finished.
The boards and posts were funded by an ‘Awards for All’ lottery grant.
It is hoped that in the future the waymarking can be extended with more posts and interpretation boards so that the whole route can be marked.
Planning Permission
Outline Planning Permission was granted for the MK Waterway Park was granted by the Development Control Committee of the Milton Keynes Council and the MK Partnership Committee (the planning authority for the Expansion Area) in June 2007.
The application for this permission included:
- A Planning Application Statement covering design and access, community involvement and sustainability
- An Environmental Statement covering water resources, biodiversity, soil and geology, landscape and visual impact, traffic, noise, air quality, etc
- A Flood Risk Assessment, demonstrating that the proposals for the use of the Broughton Brook do not increase the risk of flooding in that section, nor upstream or downstream
- Drawings of the route, cross-sections, outline design to bridges, locks, etc.
In planning terms, what we are creating is an iconic leisure, environmental, educational and economic infrastructure amenity serving Milton Keynes, the sub-region and beyond. The Waterway Park is a major piece of “enabling infrastructure”: we are creating a reason for people to visit cafes, shops, and educational resources along the waterway, and creating an incentive for others to develop such commercial facilities. We are also creating a place where people can go just to enjoy themselves, without spending money.
What we are physically building is some 6 kilometres of linear water park: landscaped planted areas of land and water, paths & access points for diverse user groups, and of course the watercourse itself: a multi-use, navigable watercourse with some 12 locks, a short aquaduct, crossings, pumping systems, weirs, embankments and cuttings. At its western end it will connect to the Grand Union Canal at the heart of Milton Keynes. At its eastern end it will terminate with a marina space in the city’s Eastern Expansion Area.
Funding
The work to create the planning application was largely funded by a £250k grant from the Big Lottery Fund which was awarded to the Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterway Trust. The Waterway Park had been short-listed for a Big Lottery award of £25M in their Living Landscapes round. Unfortunately, like all the other waterway contenders in England and Wales, the bid was ultimately unsuccessful so other ways of taking this first stage of the waterway forward are being explored. Success with the bid would have gone a long way towards the construction costs for the project.
Step by step along the route
The Junction
The route of the MK Waterway Park is currently being waymarked by Trust members so that it is easy to spot on the ground.
Willen Lake
After leaving the Grand Union, the first port of call is Willen Lake, where the plan is to allow waterway boats to travel onto the lake, kept in a designated area by a floating barrier. This will allow boaters to moor, creating a new attraction for everyone visiting the lake. It will also enable the boats to use the entire lake, for special occasions. Whitecap Leisure, who operate Willen Lake’s commercial attractions are very excited by the possibilities, while bearing in mind that the principal purpose of the lake is to manage rainwater run-off in times of flood, and all leisure activities have to take this into account. The design caters for the variation in the lake’s water level, and in some times of high water level the waterways leading into and out of the lake will have to be shut to boat traffic. At the eastern side of the lake, the Waterway will have a double lock and a small aquaduct to get boats over the river Ouzel, and it is hoped this can be a focus for new visitor facilities nearby.
Broughton, Atterbury and the Eastern Expansion Area
The Waterway will then follow the course of Broughton Brook, weaving through and serving new housing and employment areas. At the eastern end of the Waterway Park, there is a great opportunity for the turning point to be incorporated into a future development such as a marina and leisure complex.
The Trust is ‘future proofing’ this first project with the long term plan to extend the Waterway all the way to Bedford, as and when funds allow, creating 24 km of new Waterway at the centre of a ‘green corridor’ that will run from the MK boundary via the M1 through Marston Vale to Bedford.
John Bint
MK Waterway Park FAQs
How long is the Milton Keynes Waterway Park?
For the Big Lottery bid, we were concentrating on the first 6 km, from Grand Union canal to a terminal marina. There is a further stretch of about 1.5 km from there to the boundary of MK, near Junction 13 of the M1.
Would the £25 m Lottery money have covered the full cost of the Milton Keynes Waterway Park?
We expected it to cost about £30M - £40M to build the project, including contingencies. This excludes the land which is being made available at no cost. There are a number of schemes to raise money from other sources and we are still working with the engineering consultants to find ways of reducing the total cost.
How will the canal work through Willen Lake?
We hope the canal channel will run along the southern edge and be buoyed off from the rest of the lake. There will be visitor moorings for boaters on the shore side.
Will there be boats permanently moored along the Waterway Park?
No, only short stay visitor moorings at appropriate places. There will be long term and visitor moorings in the marina at the far end of the Waterway Park, and at other marina sites that may be developed.
Where will the water come from?
The Grand Union Canal will feed the locks down to Willen Lake. The rest of the water will come from Broughton Brook and the rain run offs from the building development along the route. The canal will act as a balancing pond for these developments.
How long will it take to build the Waterway Park?
If the project had received the BIG Lottery grant in September 2007, the target date for completion was four years later, in 2011.
However in the absence of the Big Lottery money, a different approach is now being taken, breaking the entire project into a number of smaller sub-projects, some of which can be undertaken independently, as funding is obtained. In some cases, work on the Waterway Park will hopefully be linked to the development of the surrounding land.
We hope that physical work can start in some areas by 2009 and be completed within 2-3 years. We do not yet have a timetable for completion of the entire route.
What will happen to the earth dug out to build the canal?
We hope it can be used to build a protective bund (or bank) to shield residents of the new houses from the noise of the M1.
What will be at the eastern turning point of the Waterway Park?
Initially we will build a turning space with room for potential moorings. Developers have already expressed an interest in building leisure facilities around this, making it into a major feature of the proposed “Gateway to Milton Keynes”. This could include café-bars, shops, restaurants, hotels and apartments, making the “turning point” into a major marina facility.
Who will look after the Waterway Park when it is built?
Milton Keynes Parks Trust and British Waterways. The Parks Trust will look after the “parks” elements of the Waterway Park, and British Waterways will look after the structures and operational aspects of the “waterway”.
