Start your Milton Keynes outdoor adventure, before even stepping outside!

    MK based agency, Interdirect, The Parks Trust and the Greensand Country Landscape Partnership, have designed and developed websites that encourage people to explore the local landscape.

    Fostering a new-found love and respect of the great outdoors, the pandemic has made us all appreciate the greenspaces on our doorstep and, as a result, many of us have discovered new places to explore and exciting local nature and wildlife to see.

    Interdirect has hosted The Parks Trust’s website for more than 4 years, and together they have built on the creation of its interactive mapping tool to share information, images and exact locations of each of the parks and nature reserves managed by the trust. Recent additions to the site include the ability to switch between list and map views on the landing page and between gallery, map and walking routes on detailed pages.

    Our collective increase in outdoor pursuits has also helped encourage the uptake of the What Three Words system and The Parks Trust has recently introduced this information to its website, in order to make it even easier for users to find the parks and facilities they’re looking for.

    Having seen the capabilities of The Parks Trust’s website, the Greensand Country Landscape Partnership were keen to explore how an interactive map could be used to help local people and businesses identify with the newly branded area, Greensand Country. Stretching from Leighton Buzzard to Gamlingay and surrounding the popular walking route ‘The Greensand Ridge’, Greensand Country is becoming increasingly recognised as an area of natural beauty, in a unique and special landscape.

    As well as providing information about parks and nature reserves, the Greensand Country website needed to support event information, including listings for the annual Greensand Country Festival. It also required functionality to provide details of local places to eat and drink, accommodation, business listings and walking, cycling and horse-riding routes.

    In order to keep content management requirements down, the landscape partnership requested a Charter Member’s area, where registered members could upload and manage their own listings and information.

    Helen Billingham, Lead Project Manager at Interdirect explains: “With a passion for the local landscape and a long-standing relationship with The Parks Trust, we’ve helped create a website that dispels any pre-conceptions about Milton Keynes and highlights the vast number of parks, nature reserves and greenspaces in the area.

    “As testimony to our success on The Parks Trust’s website, we were delighted to be appointed to work on the Greensand Country project, where we expanded our mapping capabilities to include events, routes, attractions and businesses, all searchable on the interactive map.”

    Christina Turner, Digital Marketing Manager: “As a self-financing charity which cares for over 6,000 acres of green space across Milton Keynes, The Parks Trust are passionate about encouraging people to get outdoors and explore their local parkland. We are delighted that our latest website developments have enhanced the way visitors can search and discover new parks through improvements to our interactive map and the addition of new filter capabilities.”

    Gill Welham, Chief Executive of The Greensand Trust, which co-leads the Greensand Country Landscape Partnership with Bedfordshire Rural Communities Charity, commented: “Further to the creation of a new brand for the unique and inspiring landscape of Greensand Country, we were keen to provide local residents, businesses and those new to the area with all of the information and insight they need to get out and explore walking, cycling and horse-riding routes, local attractions, seasonal events and much more.

    “The interactive mapping tool is key to the Greensand Country website and in helping people to find local routes, areas of interest and attractions. Interdirect has helped us to create a website that not only provides the information that local people need today, but has the flexibility to add and change mapping features as the Greensand Country Landscape Partnership and its many projects develop into the future.”

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