Park Projects

Buckinghamshire Council is pleased to announce the building of a new café and toilet facilities at Black Park Country Park in south Buckinghamshire. Planning permission has been granted for a new café with indoor seating, an outside terrace, an external sales point for takeaway snacks and drinks, and improved toilet facilities. The new building, which has been self-financed by Buckinghamshire Country Parks, will enhance the park space and improve the facilities for visitors.

Clive Harriss, Buckinghamshire Council’s Cabinet Member for Culture and Leisure, said:

“I am delighted that we have the go ahead for the new facilities at Black Park Country Park. An indoor café near the car park will be a welcome addition to the park, giving visitors more options for catering in all weathers. In addition, the upgrades to the surrounding area and facilities will help to make the park even more enjoyable for everyone.

“Visitors to the park may notice some work starting in September, and we aim to open the new facilities in spring 2025.”

The new café will serve a variety of hot and cold drinks, meals and snacks, with catering provided by the park’s current catering company, San Remo. This will be in addition to the existing Lakeside Café – enhancing the catering offer within the park. Work will be ongoing from September 2024 - March 2025. San Remo currently have a catering trailer located next to Go Ape to serve visitors.

To find out more, visit our Black Park New Cafe Building page.

Black Park Lake is the only large, raised reservoir in Buckinghamshire. The Country Parks Team are responsible for managing the condition of the reservoir and a survey of the lake bank has highlighted significant erosion. Erosion is where the edges of the lake are gradually worn away through the actions of both weather and water, along with human interventions such as allowing dogs to enter the water.  As the bank erodes, tree roots are exposed and the bank becomes more unstable and, as a result, the erosion increases. The aim of this project is to improve, stabilise and protect the lake banks for both visitors and wildlife by ensuring its future as a key feature of the country park.

Our Ranger Team are currently working on a structured section of the erosion works. This is designed to provide open views across the lake whilst protecting the bank from further erosion.

From 11^th November 2024, our appointed contractor, Salix, will commence bio-engineering work on a 180m section of the lake bank. This will use native wetland plants, alongside the planting of over 100 trees, to increase the biodiversity of the lake bank and encourage a wider variety of wildlife.  From 18^th November, as works commence with heavy machinery, a section of the circular lakeside path, shown in yellow on the map, will be closed for three weeks including all access from the main car park.

These essential works are funded by the money raised through car parking charges and commercial filming within the Country Parks.

Following the significant impact of HS2’s viaduct construction and associated works on Denham Country Park, Buckinghamshire Council has been awarded funding from HS2. We will be working with contractors to use the funding to open up some of the wider areas of the park, allowing us to improve public access, with new bridges and path surfacing, and increase the biodiversity, through the creation of wetland areas, including ponds, scrapes and ditches and the control of non-native invasive flora species.

In October and November, five pedestrian bridges will be replaced and approximately 1km of paths raised and resurfaced, subject to weather conditions. Footpath diversions will be in place during these works. Further works to complete maintenance to existing ditches and tree works to improve the flow and storage of flood water will also take place during the Autumn. Any works delayed by poor weather conditions will be rescheduled to Spring/Summer 2025.

In 2023 The Country Parks Team are working with The Environment Partnership (TEP) to create a spatial plan and management plan for Langley Park. The plans will be used by The Country Parks Team to guide future decision making on infrastructure improvements and new projects. It will help to ensure that development is well planned, coherent and in keeping with the character of the park. The plans set out a vision and strategic direction for the park which can be used to guide longer term decision making up to 2070, with the interventions included primarily focused on the period up to 2040.

The poplar trees in Denham Country Park car park are due to have some works carried out. They are extremely resilient and they can tolerate quite dramatic-looking reductions to their crowns.

For trees that we wish to grow back, cutting them at ground level is called coppicing, but cutting them higher up is called pollarding.

In the past, the main reasons for pollarding were to create a long-term supply of firewood and fodder to feed livestock, but now it is a tool to keep trees from out-growing space, to promote dense foliage and to prolong their life for as long as possible.

As well as in parks and gardens, many road-side trees are pollarded and they are most obvious straight after cutting, when the bare stems and ‘knuckles’ where the cuts were made can look stark and quite unusual.

Our heathland needs your help!

We're encouraging all our visitors to help protect our heathland by only using the main paths all year round. The heathland is home to a wide range of plants, birds, reptiles, mammals and insects.

Sticking to paths helps minimise disturbance to hibernating species in colder months and ground nesting birds warmer months. 

This will allow our heathland habitat and wildlife to thrive.

#Helpourheathland

The Ha Ha wall at Langley has been progressing well.  Due to ecological considerations the wall rebuild could not start until the beginning of September.  The contractors demolished the existing collapsed section of walling before excavating the foundations, see image 1.  The new foundations and new walling have been designed by a specialist structural engineer, so that they can retain the existing soil bank and any localised tree roots.

The contractors proceed to concrete the foundations, see image 2 before installing a concrete block retaining wall that will sit behind the facing brickwork. The new wall has weep holes at set intervals to allow any water at the rear of the wall to escape, see images 3 & 4.  Unfortunately, work has ended abruptly due to a huge deluge of rain. The bottom of the Ha, Ha is now under water, see image 5.  The wall has now been covered in preparation for building the facing brickwork to resume next spring 2025

South Bucks Country Park (working title) is currently being developed on the site of the old Lanes Golf Academy. This 59 acre country park will offer local residents a wide range of new facilities and outdoor opportunities. It will include a Pay and Display car park, a new café, public toilet facilities, a new play area and a network of new countryside walks.