River Thames - Maidenhead Waterways

Construction of the first two stages of the Maidenhead Waterways project – to restore and enlarge Maidenhead’s neglected town-centre channels into a navigable waterway and new public amenity – was completed in 2018. A weir was added in 2020 to lift and stabilise water levels throughout the town centre, incorporating fish and eel passes plus boat rollers to allow passage by small craft. A new boating platform and storage area under the arches were added to the central Chapel Arches water basin in 2023, providing a base for the waterways group’s channel maintenance craft.

An £8m programme saw the 1.1km-long York Stream (half of the consented ring plan) built in conjunction with developments next to the waterway at Chapel Arches and York Road. Both schemes are part of a larger ongoing regeneration programme for the town centre, the waterway linking key development sites and acting as a catalyst for the major investments involved. The final phase of Shanly Group’s Chapel Arches residential development, set around two large water basins, was completed in 2022 and is now mostly occupied.

Countryside’s development, just downstream at York Road, is also complete with a number of streamside businesses now open there. 
The waterway project aims to ‘bring the Thames into town’, with the waterway passing into and around central Maidenhead as a key feature of its wider regeneration. With the York Stream arm now fully established and its wildlife abundant, attention in 2023 focused on adding boat launching and related facilities to further activate the waterway, while work continues to clear obstructions to passage along the existing Bray Cut link to the Thames.

_{April 2024}