CanalCuttings - Your FREE Online-world British Inland Waterways, Narrowboat, River Cruiser, Canal Boat Magazine, Info Source and Britain's & Narrowboat Holiday Guide.
Around 850 Pages of Information and Features About Canals, Navigable Rivers and Their Usage - We're not just a Narrowboat World Magazine. The website includes River and Inland Waterways information - UK Inland Waterways Press Releases and Articles Invited.

Water-Way to Cruise - Destination Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway (B&MK)

A canal-side view of the potential benefits
the proposed B & MK Waterway

A canal-side view of the potential benefits the proposed B & MK Waterway would bring to these towns and central Bedfordshire proved to be a revelation for passengers onboard narrowboat Ocean Princess on Wednesday 16th September 2009.

So great was the demand from special interest groups that three separate cruises were arranged along the Grand Union Canal - and still people had to be turned away.

Wyvern Shipping Co Limited, Rothschild Road, Linslade, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, LU7 2TF James Griffin of Wyvern Shipping had volunteered his boat for the afternoon for the invited guests. Passengers included councillors, planners, architects, business people, boat owners, hoteliers, musicians (Life and Times) and people from special interest and community groups. They enjoyed a two-hour return cruise from Campbell Park in Milton Keynes to Great Linford. The Wyvern Shipping Co Limited, Rothschild Road, Linslade, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, LU7 2TF.

Turning into Pennyland Basin, they saw how a 1980s canal-side community had developed, alongside environmental and recreational benefits. Local residents hope the basin will become a conservation area.

Random comments along the route:

"This just demonstrates the possibilities the waterway would create."; "You get a very different perspective of Milton Keynes from the water."; "Milton Keynes is an excellent example now of a mature environment."; "If this is what a canal can do, let’s have the waterway through our community."

The proposed 26km B&MK Waterway will create the missing link between the Grand Union Canal at Milton Keynes to the Great Ouse at Bedford via a series of waterparks.

Jane Wolfson, chair of the B&MK Waterway Trust, has said: “The Trust and its partners believe the creation of the link can be delivered sequentially. A critical segment would be to restore and open up the river from the heart of Bedford through to Kempston as a catalyst to regenerating the town centre, and onwards to connect the town with the countryside to the west.”