The Parks Trust is thrilled that its premier park Willen Lake has won the Milton Keynes Business Achievement Award for Leisure & Entertainment.
There was stiff competition this year for the coveted title of Leisure & Entertainment with some fantastic organisations all competing for the award.
Willen Lake is Milton Keynes’ most popular park. It offers a wide range of activities on and off the water including; Treetop Extreme, the county’s only urban high ropes course, outdoor splash park Splash ‘n’ Play, and watersports such as wakeboarding, canoeing and stand up paddleboarding. Willen Lake also has a hire centre where pedalos, kayaks and turbo paddlers can be rented. Each year they see approximately 800,000 visitors to the Lake, who come from across the country.
In recent years Willen Lake has undergone substantial improvement works with the opening of Splash ‘n’ Play, new toilets, refreshment kiosk and a new surfaced car park offering an additional 300 car parking spaces in 2017. This year Willen Lake is starting the next stage of improvement works with the construction of an impressive new building situated on the edge of the lake.
The building will house a purpose-built watersports centre with state-of-the-art facilities for customers including; modern changing rooms, showers and additional toilets. This centre will be the hub for all watersport activities at Willen Lake by bringing them under one roof. The building will include a new café and restaurant, which will offer dining options on both the ground and first floor. The restaurant will offer stunning views across the lake and the opportunity to dine alfresco.
It will be fully accessible, with level access, lifts, accessible toilets and baby change facilities. Furthermore, it will include a full Changing Places facility. This is in addition to the accessible toilets and will accommodate people with profound and multiple learning disabilities, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, as well as older people with severe disabilities.
Robert Wood General Manager at Willen Lake says: ‘We’re delighted to have won the Leisure & Entertainment award at the Milton Keynes Business Achievement Awards. This is an extremely exciting year for us with the start of second phase of improvements works, fantastic events such as Big Doggie Do and FriendsFest happening at Willen Lake, as well as all our exciting activities we have available for families to enjoy’
To find out more about Willen Lake visit their website at www.willenlake.org.uk
