Making 'The Wave' - £20m surfing project being built near Bristol

Family holidays in Cornwall inspired the man behind Europe's biggest surfing project.

The £20 million lake called 'The Wave' - an inland surfing lagoon - will open near Bristol this autumn.

Nick Hounsfield was inspired by family holidays in Cornwall as a child. Credit: Family

It's the brainchild of Nick Hounsfield. Remembering his family holidays off the North Cornish coast in the 1970s and 1980s, the 45-year-old quit his job as an osteopath and spent years raising the millions needed for the project.

  • Watch 'The Wave Maker'

This is a prototype but The Wave promises a wave every eight seconds. Credit: Wavegarden

There is a prototype in Spain, and although Wales has a surfing lake, Nick Hounsfield's project will use a new technology which promises many more waves - one every eight seconds - of different sizes for different abilities. It's the first of its type in the northern hemisphere.

The project is about halfway through construction on a site at Easter Compton near Cribbs Causeway.