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Background details to the Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway

The Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterway Trust has been working hard since the mid 1990s to put in place the vision first proposed in 1810 by Samuel Whitbread, then Bedford MP, to link the Grand Union Canal at Milton Keynes to the River Great Ouse at Bedford, thus joining the inland canal system to the Fenland Waterways and the sea by the most direct route.

In 2006-7 over 400 organisations applied to the Big Lottery Fund ‘Living Landmarks’ section. The Trust was one of the 11 projects considered viable to fund, but unfortunately money could only be found for 3 projects. Nevertheless a development grant of £250,000 gave impetus for detailed studies and outline planning permission for the Milton Keynes end of the Waterway.

Richard Wood has been seconded from the Department of Communities and Local Government to work with The Trust and other partners to gain planning permission for the Bedford and Marston Vale sections and to provide vital evidence of the progress of a brand new waterway on the ground.

2009 will see the first section of the waterway actually dug when a wide tunnel designed for use by the Waterway, a footpath and cycleway, will be created leading under the newly dualled A421. It will join the Marston Vale Millennium Country Park with Berry Wood, Wootton.