London surfers rejoice as popular inland surf company The Wave is coming to London

Groundbreaking artificial surfing company The Wave is expanding across the UK and Ireland, with the first of the six new locations announced being in London.

The company, which opened its first surfing lake in Bristol in 2019, is already working on a highly anticipated second site in London.

The site will be located in Enfield and will be part of the Lee Valley Regional Park.

The construction of the site is currently in the planning application stage, however, the company has hopes of submitting the finished plans by Autumn.

If all goes to plan the London site will begin construction in 2023.

The company has made huge developments for inland surfing destinations, in which the wave is powered by Wavegarden Cover technology.

With this technology they hope to build a further six Wave sites, and have received a massive investment of over £200 million.

The multi-million-pound deal puts The Wave at the forefront of the nascent surf park sector in the UK and Ireland - a leisure category that is predicted to boom in the next 5 years.

The expansion is set to bring a combined total of over 2 million visitors a year.

The investment comes after an enormous success in the first location of The Wave Bristol, which was the first inland surfing lake using the innovative Wavegarden Cove technology to open in the world.

Craig Stoddart, The Wave CEO, spoke of the success:

Being the first to open a surf park powered by a new technology was a leap of faith in so many ways, but we believed in the technology and the team delivering it.”

“The waves work. More than that we have proved it is commercially successful, we have a great professional team of Wavemakers and we have now welcomed over 300,000 visitors through our doors since we opened – despite contending with a global pandemic.”

Despite the pandemic, further sites using the Wavegarden tech opened in 2020 and 2021, as this exciting new leisure sector continues to expand globally.

As well as being an economic success, The Wave makes surfing readily available to those not as close to the sea. Bringing with it the mental health benefits that come with surfing.

Surf Therapy is fast coming to the forefront of mental health therapy, with studies finding amazing results.

The Wave has worked closely with mental health organisation The Wave Project, which works with children who struggle.

Nick Hounsfield, Founder and CVO of The Wave, spoke of the hopes for making surfing more accessible for all abilities and backgrounds through The Wave:

“As a surfer I know how brilliant it makes me feel and the impact it has on my health.”

“Our purpose is central to everything. We want to share the positive power of waves – and the pure joy of surfing - with people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.”

“The epic thing about the Wavegarden Cove technology is that it caters to everyone, from a beginner stepping on a board for the first time, right up to pro surfers training for the Olympics, and hopefully future Paralympic surfers.”