Lake Pier, Hamworthy Launch Site improvements
Last updated 19th September 2023
A joint project between BARI (The Bird and Recreation Initiative), and BCP Council’s Greenspace Development Team and Flood & Coastal Erosion Risk Management Team
The Project
Work has started on some exciting improvements at Lake Pier!
Lake Pier has long been popular for launching paddle powered vessels such as kayaks, canoes and stand-up paddle boards with Poole Harbour Canoe Club based at the local boathouse.
It is also a great place for observing rare and wonderful wildlife, go fishing, to walk and play on the beach – or to simply relax and enjoy the stunning views across Poole Harbour.
This project aims to make access to the waterside easier and to create a place of welcome. There will be opportunities to find out fascinating facts about the harbour landscape and visitors can also learn how to keep safe on their adventures whilst protecting wildlife and the environment.
Poole Harbour – Did you know?
Poole Harbour is an internationally important site for over-wintering wildfowl and wading birds and designated as a Special Protection Area (SPA).
The Nature Reserve of RSPB Arne lies just across the water opposite Lake Pier.
The mudflats, sandflats, saltmarsh, reedbeds and shallow inshore water areas within the SPA all provide essential key feeding and roosting habitats for the birds.
These areas are relatively isolated and enclosed and can easily be disturbed and damaged by recreational water-based activities, such as launching and landing canoes. This in turn has a detrimental effect on the bird populations who rely on these habitats.
The Works
The existing path to the foreshore will be upgraded & widened
Vegetation clearance followed an ecological survey
Works commence
To help protect over-wintering birds from recreational disturbance, works will include:
- Enhancing and promoting Lake Pier as a key launch site. By upgrading the existing path to allow easier launching of vessels and wider public access onto the foreshore, this facility will divert use and reduce pressure on other more sensitive, unofficially used areas, such as Holes Bay and Lytchett Bay.
- Providing interpretation to raise awareness of this unique and internationally important landscape.
- Displaying information which will encourage wildlife friendly recreation, such as BARI’s Poole Harbour Paddle Power Map (pdf)
- A new welcome area to enhance the existing facilities. Designed using local materials and sculptural elements, we hope to make this place special and provide a stronger sense of character. Seating will allow people to stay longer in the area, appreciate the views, and take the opportunity to read the information provided. Additional improvements include new cycle parking and bins.
Proposed site of the welcome area
Local stone, Suppliers and Reclaimed timbers
Artwork and path edgings will re-use timber from old groynes removed from the seafront as part of the 17-year Poole Bay Beach Management Scheme led by BCP Council’s Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) team.
The large purbeck stone blocks have been quarried not far from here at the Suttles’ Swanworth Quarry near Swanage.
The stainless steel cut outs of birds and people have been skillfully prepared just up the road by Accujet metal fabricators in Upton.
Seafront groyne timbers will be re-used
Prime purbeck block
BARI – the Bird and Recreation Initiative
The project is delivered jointly between BCP Council and The Bird and Recreation Initiative, BARI, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about winter migratory birds in Poole Harbour and wildlife friendly recreation:
Project details
Budget £35,600
Funding Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) set aside for the Poole Harbour Recreation Mitigation Strategy
Contractors BCP Council Landscape Construction Team
Contact Barbara Uphoff, Landscape Designer, BCP Council
T. 01202 123123
E. greenspaces@bcpcouncil.gov.uk