We’ve just announced an exclusivity agreement with Wavegarden, who are our technology partners and providers of The Wave technology kit. It’s a geographical exclusivity for most of the UK and the whole of Ireland. We always intended to have a multi-site approach – what we needed to do was prove the model and show what it was capable of. Without COVID we would have probably done this a lot earlier – we secured a site in the Lee Valley in London about four years ago. We’re now really pushing that forward.

We’re looking to get the planning applications submitted for the Lee Valley site later this year. I’m hoping to be close to starting construction this time next year. Realistically it will be a late 2024/early 2025 opening date. By this time next year I’d hope to be close to starting construction on the London site, having successfully got a planning permission in place with at least one other site – probably one in the north of England.

By then, I would also like to have identified at least three or four other sites across the UK and Ireland. We’re also looking at a number of sites in Europe at the moment.

I can’t be too specific at this stage, but we’re negotiating on a site in the north of England, in and around the Peak District, and we’re also looking for further sites, particularly in the South East of England.

One of the things we’re looking at is failed golf courses – there’s an oversupply of golf courses in the UK and quite a number have shut. They have planning for leisure in the green belt, they have good facilities, generally good access, and good access to water.

Typically we look for quite large sites – at least 50 acres and ideally about 100 acres. We’re looking at green spaces rather than pre-developed sites and the sites should ideally be relatively flat. They need to have good connectivity, ideally with sustainable transport options.

The other key thing for us is to be able to provide other facilities alongside the surf lake. While the surf lake is the hook and the anchor, we view ourselves more as a health and wellbeing destination. In time we’ll develop further activities in addition to surfing that will create a health and wellbeing destination around active leisure – we might look at skate parks, bike trails, yoga, nature trails and bouldering.

It’s also important to us to be able to provide accommodation. We have 25 glamping units in Bristol, and we’d ideally like to be able to put in around 75 – 100 accommodation units in our new sites – these are likely to be a mix of units, including some insulated accommodation that will help us extend the season.

The final element we’re looking for is space to put solar arrays, so we can power the site off-grid.

In Bristol we recently got planning permission and have got a funding agreement in place to put in 10 acres of solar and battery array. We already buy 100 per cent renewable energy, but this should enable us to produce about 110 per cent of our energy requirement ourselves.

We want to make surfing available for people of all ages, all backgrounds and all abilites. The sport has historically been quite inaccessible for various reasons – geography, the challenges of getting to the beach, the health and safety risks when you throw yourself into the sea and the male-dominated nature of surfing. All of those things are barriers to a sport that brings real joy and huge mental and physical benefits. We felt there had to be another way, and that it could be a sport for everyone. We sponsor Surf England to help adaptive surfing with the goal of sending some of the elite athletes off to the World Adaptive Games. A lot of that community are big champions of ours, and we got a number of them involved in the design of The Wave site.

We work really hard to provide an accessible surf experience for as many people as possible; the site has been designed to be accessible for wheelchairs and all of our systems are set up so that if you have adaptive needs we can work with those to get you surfing – that’s part of our normal booking process. That enabled us to hold the English Adaptive Surf Open championships here last year.

Another focus is on cultural access to surfing. A lot of minority communities feel surfing is not something they’ve been exposed to – we’re trying to break some of those barriers down. We’ve worked with Finisterre who have developed a suit for Muslim women so they can feel comfortable surfing – we hope that is opening up the sport to that community. We’re also trying to open up surfing to more women.

We’re trying to harness the blue health benefits of surfing. We work closely with a charity called The Wave Project which brings in children and young adults with anxiety and mental health challenges. They’re receiving funding from the NHS because they now have enough data to show that the outcomes they’re getting through surf therapy are significantly better than normal medical interventions. It’s reducing the reliance on antidepressants and drugs and delivering better outcomes for the kids.

And finally we offer significantly discounted surfs and try to raise funding to enable more people to try – that ranges from philanthropic donors to corporate groups to public grants. We have some philanthropic donors who are focused on bringing in children from schools in deprived inner city areas, for example. This year the target is to do more than 5,000 social impact-funded sessions.

More: www.thewave.com