Milton Keynes, Britain’s most famous and successful product of the New Town movement, celebrates its 50th anniversary today. A city that started as the dream of politicians and planners in the late 1960s is now home to almost 270,000 residents and 11,000 businesses, and is a cultural artefact in its own right. Today, Milton Keynes forms a model for new cities worldwide, with developments in India and China based on the proven MK formula.
On January 23rd 1967, Housing Minister Anthony Greenwood read an Act of Parliament to the House of Commons that fired the starting gun for the creation of a unique green metropolis on 8,850 HA of farmland and undeveloped villages, positioned perfectly in the heart of England, roughly equidistant from London, Birmingham, Leicester, Oxford and Cambridge.
Throughout the 1980s, 90s and 2000s, Milton Keynes was the fastest growing economy in the UK. It contributes over £10 billion of the nation’s Gross Value Added (GVA) economic output and has the UK’s third highest start-up rate and its fourth highest density of businesses.
Last year the National Infrastructure Commission launched its interim report into the Cambridge – MK – Oxford corridor stating Milton Keynes could become a global showcase for science, technology and innovation – effectively Britain’s Silicon Valley. Innovative, knowledge-based businesses are significant investors in Milton Keynes, with a third of its employment in this sector compared a quarter nationwide.
Showing a sense of humour, in 2016 Milton Keynes launched the Unexpected MK campaign challenging people's pre-conceived ideas of the city. Adverts included “Nothing but roundabouts they said” featuring images of rolling landscape, and “No history they said” alongside an artwork of Sir Alan Turing – father of the modern computer and codebreaking genius.
His wartime base, Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, is an internationally recognised heritage attraction.
Around two-fifths of Milton Keynes is open space, with residents never more than half a mile from parkland.
With 15 lakes and 11 miles of canals, the city has more bridges than Venice and more shoreline than the island of Jersey. There are more than twenty two million trees and shrubs, around 100 for every resident, and more than 180 miles of dedicated bridleways, footpaths and cycletracks.
