“Nature-based tourism contributes more than £50 billion annually to the UK economy — and it’s growing faster than any other segment of domestic leisure.”
A new era for leisure
Across the UK, leisure is entering a new era. Nature-based tourism already contributes over £50 billion annually to the UK economy, growing faster than any other segment of domestic leisure. The energy that once concentrated in city centres is turning toward landscapes that heal, places where investment meets ecology, and where experience is measured not in consumption, but in care.
This shift is profound. The UK Government’s commitment to mobilising over £1 billion annually into nature recovery by 2030 signals a wider recognition: our wellbeing is inseparable from the land that supports it. Finance, policy, and culture are beginning to align around a shared intuition, that the future of leisure will be regenerative, or not at all.
People are looking beyond the city for meaning: to places that restore rather than distract. Yet the deeper significance of this shift lies in how it redefines value — seeing nature not as backdrop, but as the living infrastructure of a healthy society.
For design, this is both an opportunity and a responsibility: to shape environments that strengthen the bond between people and the systems that sustain them. Regeneration is no longer an ethical ambition, it is the new measure of longevity.
From the Eden Project in Cornwall to the National Botanic Garden of Wales, the most forward-looking leisure destinations are evolving beyond entertainment to become engines of restoration and education. Surf London extends this trajectory, shaping a landscape where leisure regenerates both land and community
Surf London: A landscape of water, play, and wellbeing
Within the Lee Valley Regional Park, Surf London transforms a once-private golf course into a publicly accessible landscape of movement, play, and restoration. The 23-hectare site reimagines a once-closed greenbelt as a living park where ecology and activity co-exist.
At its centre lies an inland surf lake, the catalyst for regeneration. Around it, more than 10 hectares of new public parkland open to the community for the first time. Trails, wetlands, and orchards weave through the terrain, linking play spaces, picnic lawns, and nature trails along the restored Enfield Ditch. The revived watercourse now functions as both ecological corridor and sensory journey.
The vision, developed in collaboration with Crest Experiences, reimagines leisure as an act of restoration where land, water, and wellbeing form one continuous public realm.
The proposition is radical in its simplicity: to take a space once defined by exclusivity and return it to public life. In doing so, it creates an everyday landscape of access, health, and connection. Families can walk, cycle, or rest in the parkland; children play close to water; visitors move from surf to meadow in a single experience.
At the heart of the scheme is the Clubhouse. A low, timber and stone structure nestled into the landform, anchoring this landscape as both social hub and horizon. Designed to flex with the seasons, it opens outward in summer and gathers warmth in winter, blending seamlessly with the contours of the site. Around it, lightweight pavilions, shelters, and outdoor classrooms support a mix of community activities, events, and learning.
Nearby, a nature-led campsite extends this language of material and place. Nestled among mature trees, it reuses existing infrastructure and adopts the same timber expression as the Clubhouse — a lightweight, low-impact environment where visitors stay within nature rather than apart from it. Designed for seasonal flexibility, it deepens connection to place and extends the site’s year-round life.
Beyond its physical form, Surf London is conceived as a social and ecological framework. By releasing land for public use, it builds social value through community engagement, volunteering, and outdoor learning. Partnerships with local schools, youth groups, and accessibility charities extend the reach of the site, turning leisure into a platform for participation and inclusion.
MOOWD’s masterplanning leadership, guided by its Living Places Framework, aligns people, nature, and infrastructure in one regenerative system. Water management, habitat creation, and public access are choreographed as interconnected functions. Every design move, from circular materials to accessible trail design, reinforces a simple idea: that leisure and ecology are not competing interests, but partners in long-term resilience.
Surf London is therefore not just a surfing destination; it is a landscape of return — returning land to people, and people to the living systems that sustain them.
“Regeneration goes beyond resilience or sustainability. Whatever is resilient, restored, robust, or sustainable resists or recovers from shocks and stays the same. Shocks make a regenerative system better. It rebounds by building the capacity to do and be more than it was before. ”
At the crest of renewal
Projects such as Surf London signal a wider transformation in how we think about leisure, landscape, and value. Across the UK, MOOWD continues to collaborate with organisations committed to this shift — from local authorities to heritage bodies such as the National Trust — shaping environments where nature, culture, and community overlap.
What unites this work is a shared belief that regeneration is not a style, but a structure for how we live together. It’s about embedding care into the way land is used, shared, and renewed. The next generation of leisure landscapes will not only attract people but restore the systems that sustain them.
Designing the next wave of leisure means designing for continuity, for places that grow more meaningful with time, that give back as much as they offer. Our success will not be measured by what we build, but by what we heal, and the landscapes where care becomes the quiet measure of value.
Through projects like these, MOOWD continues to explore how design can regenerate the landscapes we share.