The story so far

Silent Valley is many things to many people. It is a place of remarkable landscape and tranquillity, a destination enjoyed by generations of families and visitors, and a site with an extraordinary story of engineering, industry, community and heritage.

First and foremost, however, Silent Valley is a working water asset. The reservoirs and surrounding catchment continue to play an important role in Northern Ireland’s drinking-water supply, and protecting that operational purpose sits at the heart of any conversation about its future. The earlier masterplan recognised that balance; looking at opportunities to improve how people experience and understand Silent Valley while protecting its landscape, heritage and essential role as a working water site.

Shaping Silent Valley is the next part of that conversation.

This website has been created primarily as a place for potential funders, partners, stakeholders and other organisations with an interest in Silent Valley to understand the work underway, see how thinking is developing and explore opportunities to become involved. It is not intended to replace general visitor information about the park; instead, it provides a home for the developing project, its ambitions, its stories and the journey towards securing future investment.

Building on what people have already told us

The work taking place today has not started with a blank sheet of paper.

In 2023, an extensive public consultation was undertaken to understand how local communities and visitors used Silent Valley, what they valued about it and what opportunities they saw for the future. This included an online survey, public drop-in sessions and stakeholder engagement, with the online survey alone attracting 1,418 responses.

That work helped establish a broad vision of “A living valley, shared by all”, supported by themes including inclusivity, heritage conservation, education, visitor and recreation experience, and partnership and collaboration.

A masterplan was subsequently developed to explore what those ambitions might mean in practice. It considered ideas ranging from improvements to arrival and orientation through to interpretation at Watertown House, education and visitor facilities, opportunities to tell the story of Silent Valley’s industrial heritage and Binnian Tunnel, and better connections across the wider valley.

These ideas provide an important starting point, but they should not be read as a list of funded or confirmed projects. The masterplan was about exploring possibilities and creating a longer-term vision for how Silent Valley could evolve.

Shaping what comes next

The current phase is about taking that earlier work and developing it further.

That means building the evidence and partnerships needed to make informed decisions about the future; developing the business case; exploring potential sources of external funding; understanding how heritage, interpretation and visitor experience could be approached; and continuing to listen to the people and organisations with a connection to Silent Valley.

It is also about telling the wider story of the valley.

The 2023 work identified the potential to bring together stories of engineering, the communities who lived and worked here, Silent Valley’s continuing operational role, its natural environment and, above all, the importance of water. Those themes remain central to Shaping Silent Valley today.

Over the coming months, this website will grow as that work progresses. We will share updates, stories from the valley, information about the developing vision and opportunities for potential partners, stakeholders and funders to engage with the project.

There is still a great deal to explore, and future investment has not yet been secured. That is precisely why this stage matters - creating the strongest possible foundation from which future opportunities can be considered, while ensuring that whatever comes next respects the qualities that make Silent Valley so special.

The ambition is not to change Silent Valley into somewhere different, but to understand how its landscape, heritage, stories and vital role in supplying water can be protected, better understood and carefully shared for generations to come.