Sale Water Park is a area of parkland including a artificial lake in the

Metropolitan Borough of Trafford Trafford is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England, with an estimated population of 235,493 in 2017. It covers Retrieved on 13 December 2007. and includes the area of Old Trafford and the towns of Altrincham, Stretford, Urm ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

, England. Opened in 1979 and owned by

Trafford Council Trafford Council is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of ten in Greater Manchester and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and pr ...

, the water park lies in an area of the

green belt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which ...

running through the

Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed part ...

river valley between Sale and Stretford, located between the river and the

M60 motorway The M60 motorway, Manchester Ring Motorway or Manchester Outer Ring Road is an orbital motorway in North West England. Built over a 40-year period, it passes through most of Greater Manchester's metropolitan boroughs except for Wigan and Bol ...

. The lake was formed in the 1970s by the flooding of a

gravel pit A gravel pit is an open-pit mine for the extraction of gravel. Gravel pits often lie in river valleys where the water table is high, so they may naturally fill with water to form ponds or lakes. Old, abandoned gravel pits are normally used either ...

excavated to provide material for the construction of an embankment raising the motorway above the Mersey's floodplain. The pit was excavated to a depth of around , making the lake about deep in places. The land occupied by the water park was formerly within the grounds of Sale Old Hall, demolished in 1920. All that remains of the hall today is its former lodge, now the club house for Sale Golf Club, and its

dovecote A dovecote or dovecot , doocot ( Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pige ...

, which has been restored and relocated to the nearby Walkden Gardens. Sale Water Park provides important recreational facilities and wildlife reserves, as well as forming part of the flood defences for the surrounding area of Trafford.

Broad Ees Dole

Broad Ees Dole, in the northeast of Sale Water Park, is an important wildlife refuge. Major work was carried out in the 1980s to develop Broad Ees Dole into a

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...

area that could be managed to improve the wildlife value of the park, in particular for wild birds, the main lake being too deep to provide food for many bird species. It was officially opened in 1987. The amount of water entering and leaving the Dole is managed, maintaining its mud flats to make sure they are available for birds like

common snipe The common snipe (''Gallinago gallinago'') is a small, stocky wader native to the Old World. The breeding habitats are marshes, bogs, tundra and wet meadows throughout the Palearctic. In the north, the distribution limit extends from Iceland ov ...

and

little ringed plover The little ringed plover (''Charadrius dubius'') is a small plover. The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from Ancient Greek ''kharadrios'' a bird found in river ...

s throughout the year. Migratory birds like redshank and

common sandpiper The common sandpiper (''Actitis hypoleucos'') is a small Palearctic wader. This bird and its American sister species, the spotted sandpiper (''A. macularia''), make up the genus ''Actitis''. They are parapatric and replace each other geographic ...

s also use the Dole as a resting and feeding place on their route north for the summer. In summer and winter, water is allowed in, to prevent the mud from drying up; in spring and autumn, water is released, to expose the mud. As well as the wading birds, mallards,

coot Coots are medium-sized water birds that are members of the rail family, Rallidae. They constitute the genus ''Fulica'', the name being the Latin term for "coot". Coots have predominantly black plumage, and—unlike many rails—they are usually ...

moorhen Moorhens—sometimes called marsh hens—are medium-sized water birds that are members of the rail family (Rallidae). Most species are placed in the genus ''Gallinula'', Latin for "little hen". They are close relatives of coots. They are of ...

s and

lapwings Lapwings (subfamily Vanellinae) are any of various ground-nesting birds (family Charadriidae) akin to plovers and dotterels. They range from in length, and are noted for their slow, irregular wingbeats in flight and a shrill, wailing cry. A gro ...

nest in the reeds in the marshland surrounding the mud flats.

Grey heron The grey heron (''Ardea cinerea'') is a long-legged wading bird of the heron family, Ardeidae, native throughout temperate Europe and Asia and also parts of Africa. It is resident in much of its range, but some populations from the more norther ...

s and

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

s are also frequently seen. There are no footpaths through the Dole, but the wildlife can be viewed from the paths around its perimeter. In 2003, Broad Ees Dole became the first site in Trafford to be recognised by

English Nature English Nature was the United Kingdom government agency that promoted the conservation of wildlife, geology and wild places throughout England between 1990 and 2006. It was a non-departmental public body funded by the Department for Environmen ...

as a Local Nature Reserve, primarily because of its importance to migratory birds and the diversity of its plant life. BroadEesDole1640

From around 2000, the Dole started to become infested by the alien plant swamp stonecrop. The plant began to significantly reduce the value of the nature reserve to wading birds, so in 2005 major work was undertaken to remove it. The Dole was drained, all of the surface soil was removed and the area treated with herbicide before being allowed to return to marshland. As well as providing a habitat for wild birds the Dole also contains an

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowerin ...

meadow in which

heath spotted-orchid ''Dactylorhiza maculata'', known as the heath spotted-orchid or moorland spotted orchid, is an herbaceous perennial plant of the family Orchidaceae. It is widespread in mountainous regions across much of Europe from Portugal and Iceland east to ...

s have established themselves, and there are breeding colonies of

smooth Smooth may refer to: Mathematics * Smooth function, a function that is infinitely differentiable; used in calculus and topology * Smooth manifold, a differentiable manifold for which all the transition maps are smooth functions * Smooth algebrai ...

and

great crested newt The northern crested newt, great crested newt or warty newt (''Triturus cristatus'') is a newt species native to Great Britain, northern and central continental Europe and parts of Western Siberia. It is a large newt, with females growing up to ...

s. The etymology of the name Broad Ees Dole perhaps provides a clue to one of the past uses of this area. ''Ees'' describes a wetland, and ''Dole'' describes a plot of land allocated to the poor.

Flood mitigation

Sale Water Park lies within the floodplain of the River Mersey and plays a significant part in local flood defence. If the water level of the river rises dangerously high, then a sluice gate can be opened to allow water to flow from the river into the water park, where it can be stored until the floodwaters have passed. Sale Water Park is one of a number of similar flood basins in the area. Chorlton Water Park on the north side of the Mersey about upstream is another, along with areas in Didsbury and elsewhere. Monitoring the water level of the river and deciding when to open the sluice gates into the park is the responsibility of the Environment Agency.

Recreation

Trafford Water Sports Centre is situated on the edge of the lake. It was opened in 1988 and is operated on behalf of Trafford Council originally by Deckers, a private company but since has been taken over by Peak Education. The centre provides facilities and training in

windsurfing Windsurfing is a wind propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the aerospace and surf culture of California. Windsurfing ga ...

dinghy sailing Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls: * the sails * the foils (i.e. the daggerboard or centreboard and rudder and sometimes lifting foils as found on the Moth) * the trim (forward/rear angle o ...

and kayaking as well as offering two restaurants. The Sale Water Ski Club is also based at the lake. The lake is popular with local anglers, containing a wide variety of fresh water fish, such as carp,

perch Perch is a common name for fish of the genus ''Perca'', freshwater gamefish belonging to the family Percidae. The perch, of which three species occur in different geographical areas, lend their name to a large order of vertebrates: the Per ...

, roach,

eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

and

catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the three largest species alive ...

. Part of the lake has been reserved for the exclusive use of wildlife. On 7 November 2013, Trafford Council announced that the water sports centre would close on 31 December 2013, and that the contract for maintenance would also end. The water sport centre has since re-opened for business and now offers an even wider range of water sports/ activities and can be booked via Peak Pursuits. Since October 2017, Sale Water Park hosts a free, weekly 5 km

parkrun Parkrun (stylised as parkrun) is a collection of events for walkers, runners and volunteers that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 23 countries across six continents. Junior Parkrun (stylised as junior parkrun) ...

event, run along the banks of the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed par ...

and partially around the artificial lake.

References

Notes Bibliography * {{Refend

External links

Mersey Valley Countryside Warden Service
Parks and commons in Trafford Sale, Greater Manchester