Work has started on a new boathouse, restaurant space and extended visitor car park at a Nottinghamshire nature reserve. The car park at Kings Mill Reservoir in Sutton-in-Ashfield is currently being extended to accommodate a new boathouse building, which was approved by Ashfield District Council in February.
The construction of the new building is due to start in late summer, with the demolition of the former sailing club taking place later this year. As well as the restaurant and function space on the first floor, the boathouse building will provide modern, accessible changing facilities for water sports and a meeting/training room on the ground floor.
These facilities will support activities including sailing, paddle boarding, kayaking, and open water swimming and will allow more residents and visitors to Kings Mill Reservoir the opportunity to access water sports. The scheme is part of Ashfield District Council’s £62.6m Towns Fund project, and since submitting the initial planning application, the authority has been undertaking surveys and site investigations, including bat surveys, to ensure wildlife is protected and habitats are enhanced by the new facility.
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Councillor Samantha Deakin, Executive Lead for Parks and Environmental Services at Ashfield District Council, said: “The plans for Kings Mill Reservoir are extremely exciting. We can’t wait to be able to open up the offer of a variety of great new activities to visitors.
"The location of the new restaurant offering will be a fantastic addition to the reservoir and will bring in even more visitors to Ashfield. I want to reassure residents that the demolition and construction phases of this project will be done sensitively to ensure none of the resident wildlife will be disturbed.”
The new leisure facilities will complement the expansion of the existing onsite adventure centre, Mill Adventure Base, to include outdoor activities which will be operational later this year. The works at Kings Mill Reservoir are due for completion in summer 2024.
Kathryn Dunk, principal landscape architect at Influence, which is one of the organisations involved with the project, said: “Kings Mill Reservoir is a special place where nature and visitors flock. It’s a place for being close to nature, enjoying the surroundings and experiencing the myriad of water sports on offer.
“I’m really pleased that progress is being made to create the new leisure building which will sit alongside the water sports facilities and provide a place to dine and relax. Naturally landscape plays a key part here and we have created designs that responds to the specific character of the reserve, with a naturalistic planting palette of grasses and wildflowers and native Downy Birch trees reaching across the site to the water’s edge.”
