Milton Keynes to double in size over next 10 years

Biggest urban expansion for 50 years.

One of England's largest cities is set to emerge beside the genteel country estates and timeless villages of Buckinghamshire over the next 20 years.

Under plans being prepared by a national regeneration agency for John Prescott's housing and planning department, the new town of Milton Keynes is likely to double in size and overtake cities such as Nottingham, Leicester, and perhaps Liverpool.

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In what would be the country's biggest urban expansion in more than 50 years, the government yesterday unveiled a new 10-strong body that will take planning powers from the local council to fast-track building on swaths of countryside mainly to the west and east of a town which is already the fastest growing in Britain.

The housing stock of Milton Keynes is likely to double, with 70,000 new homes, while the local council estimates its population will rise from 210,000 to 370,000, though the figure could be much higher.

Unlike the present layout of the town, considered wasteful of space because its designers in the early 70s drew inspiration from a Los Angeles-style grid system, houses in the planned extension, which would take the town towards Aylesbury in the west and the M1 in the east, will be built to much higher densities.

Even so, the regeneration agency, English Partnerships, revealed that 1,800 hectares will be needed in the proposed urban development area, of which a 10th is already owned by the agency. The rest is in the hands of four developers who will have to work closely with a new partnership board or committee. It will have powers to acquire land by compulsory purchase if necessary.

While the expansion was welcomed in some quarters, surrounding councils in Buckinghamshire were alarmed by the prospect of a greater Milton Keynes "swallowing up villages" to suit what they called a grand design of Mr Prescott.

The deputy prime minister sees MK, as it is known, as the vanguard in his battle to build tens of thousands of affordable homes for workers priced out of the housing market in the south-east of England. His department is driving forward development so that signs of progress can be seen before the next election.

Significantly, the government is using planning powers similar to those which created MK 30 years ago, although the committee, on which the council will have three members, will replace the well-funded development corporation which created the town and was subsequently wound up.

Milton Keynes was the last, and biggest, of 30 new towns built after 1946. Although some have endured longer than others, the Commons housing and planning select committee observed 18 months ago that many were in a "spiral of decline", with ugly shopping centres and thousands of homes needing repair.

Undaunted, Mr Prescott has decreed that the new Milton Keynes committee or board - effectively a branch of English Partnerships - should have a business plan ready by the spring, with work starting on the ground next year. His regeneration minister, Lord Rooker, insisted yesterday that one of the aims of the new urban development area would be to prevent urban sprawl "through managed and considered development".

This cut little ice with Aylesbury Vale district council. It wonders why Milton Keynes is expanding more to the west, rather than to the east of the M1, and it plans to challenge the government at a forthcoming public hearing.

"We have a lot of concerns," said Carol Paternoster, the councillor in charge of planning. "We don't want our pleasant villages swallowed up by an ever-expanding Milton Keynes. People are very worried."

Milton Keynes council, which will lose planning powers to the committee in the growth, or urban development, area - but not in the rest of the town - said it would have liked to be in charge of its own destiny "with a locally accountable body".

"But that wasn't good enough for the government," said its chief executive, John Best. "They felt they needed something a little more red-blooded that also had a direct statutory accountability back into the government."

Mr Best said uncertainty over the substantial sums needed to provide new schools, roads, extra transport services and more health facilities was "far and away the most worrying aspect" of the proposals.

But David Lock, the former deputy planner of Milton Keynes development corporation, who runs an international consultancy in the new town, believes yesterday's announcement provides an opportunity "of equal significance to the creation of the new town" although he would have liked to see a full-blown development corporation, funded by the Treasury, to oversee expansion.

"The population of the town has remained relatively stable and I only hope it will hang together when it is twice as big," he said.

The Guardian, 06.01.2004

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