One of Bedford’s best-loved assets is the River Great Ouse, and a new website has been launched to help locals and visitors make the most of it.
If you are interested in walking, paddling, swimming, boating, or fishing along Bedford’s beautiful riverbanks, then this website is for you.
Set up by keen swimmer and paddleboarder Howard Osborne, Great Ouse Ways contains useful links and detailed guides to groups, societies, clubs, activities and events happening along the river.
Describing the website as a “labour of love”, Howard is looking forward to putting his background in IT to good use to enhance our enjoyment of the river.
The website is easy to navigate with a user-friendly interface and simple maps labelled clearly.
Don’t lose the Ouse
As well as recreational ideas, the website also has suggestions of groups and organisations you can join that are involved in cleaning the river and checking its health, including:
- BedsGOVET – a volunteer-run group that carries out regular water quality monitoring at several sites around Bedford and runs the initiative “Don’t lose the Ouse”
- Greensands Trust – a charity that works with local communities and landowners to improve access, understanding and enjoyment of the distinctive landscape, wildlife and history of the Greensand Ridge and wider area
- Great Ouse Rivers Trust – An environmental body dedicated to protecting the Great Ouse and its tributaries, lakes, wetlands and wider catchment for the benefit of people and nature
Alongside the website, Howard also helped establish the Great Ouse Rivers Trust in 2023, a charity dedicated to achieving its vision of a healthy, clean river through projects such as chalk-stream restoration.
He hopes the website will give others, “the chance to explore the river (and its tributaries) and share what they find as well”.
Visit greatouseways.info to find out more
Published as part of our work experience partnership with Kimberley College
