| Willen Lake | |
| Location: | Milton Keynes |
| Coordinates: | 52.0547°N -0.7211°W |
| Homepage: | https://www.willenlake.org.uk/ |
| Owner: | The Parks Trust |
| Visitors: | 850,000/year |
| Area: | 138 hectares |
| General Manager: | Robert Wood |
| Operator: | Whitecap Leisure |
| Season: | Watersports March - October Splash Park April - October Treetop Extreme Year-round Benugo Bar & Kitchen Year-round Park Year-round |
Willen Lake is a visitor attraction and public park in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire[1] The site is owned by The Parks Trust, an independent, self-funded charity that cares for and maintains over 6,000 acres of green space across MK.[2]
Willen Lake is Milton Keynes's most popular park,[3] attracting in excess of 750,000 visitors a year. It comprises 180 acres of landscaped parkland which surround around 100 acres of water across two lakes.[4] Both lakes are balancing lakes, designed to mitigate flooding from the River Ouzel. The southern lake offers a wide range of activities on and off the water,[5] whilst the northern lake offers a more natural and tranquil setting, ideal for quiet walks and spotting wildlife. There are large events held on the site throughout the year, including Comedy Central's FriendsFest [6]
, the activities area of the park includes of a number of leisure attractions [7] including:
Since January 2010, Willen Lake has also been the location of the Milton Keynes parkrun, which currently starts just to the West of the lake, then follows the Grand Union canal to Great Holm, before making a complete loop of the South Lake and finishing by the Watersports Centre[10] .
The lake is one of the largest purpose-built stormwater balancing lakes in the UK. The lake is designed to take surface run-off from Milton Keynes, the largest of a number designed to do so. The lake has capacity for an additional level increase of 1.3 metres, equivalent to a once in 200 years event. Unlike most of the rest of the UK, Milton Keynes has separate storm and foul sewers, so sewage pollution is not a significant problem.
The lake is surrounded by a mixture of open parkland and woodland, which forms part of the wider Ouzel Valley Park.[12] The lake is divided by an embankment and bridge carrying the A509 (H5 Portway), which runs between the east and west of the city, providing links to M1 Junction 14 (approximately to the north-east), and Central Milton Keynes and the A5 (approximately and to the south-west, respectively).