Watling Academy, Milton Keynes

Watling Academy is a newly built secondary school in the heart of the Western Expansion area of Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes Council funded the project to meet the growth arising from the continued expansion of the town. Graham Construction were appointed on this £40m secondary school that will create 1,800 new school places for 11-16 year-olds and Langley Design were delighted to be chosen to deliver a huge scope of street furniture and canopy products on this project.

Langley Design’s full manufacturing capabilities were on show here as we provided Cycle shelters, canopies, concrete benches, timber topped concrete benches, bollards, litter bins, recycling bins, planters, picnic tables, timber seats & benches. Our material pallet included precast concrete, galvanised and powder-coated steel, stainless steel and Treated Redwood. With such a breadth of product, it was important to keep the aesthetics so the choices of colours for the concrete and canopies were discussed at length whilst ensuring items that needed powder coating matched the areas they were going into. The mixture of solid, straight precast concrete benches, alongside the curved units to match the paving line, gave the school a funky seating arrangement whilst also protecting the landscaped areas. We also timber topped a different range of our concrete benches alongside the school building which gives the students an additional seating area whilst offering a comfier seat against compared with the concrete. Perhaps the most striking element of the project was our incredibly impressive external canopy which covered a whopping 32m x 8m area. Underneath this was our more traditional timber and granite picnic table sets which offered external dining for the students under a covered space. This still allowed half the area open for the school to use as outdoor teaching or additional covered space for the students to socialise.