Sun glinting off one of the new lakes created in the flood-plain forest project at Wolverton. The planting is new too.

This has been an understandably controversial project, but one which I have supported all along. The MK Parks Trust and Hanson Aggregates agreed to return a pleasingly open, but ecologically dull, tract of pasture alongside the River Ouse to its earlier state as a flood-plain forest, so re-creating a now very rare environment - one of only very few in the UK.

Gravel extraction has only just ended; birdlife is already prolific. Eventually there will be walkways along the bunds between the lakes, and the forest will develop over the years.

Other gravel extraction projects in Milton Keynes have created now mature nature reserves which are highly rated by bird spotters and nature lovers.