| shire_district = City of Milton Keynes

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Milton Keynes ( ) is a city<!--The area that is the subject of this article, the contiguous urban segment of the City of Milton Keynes district, does not have legal city status itself although it is widely known as "the city". Formally, the Letters Patent were awarded to the responsible local authority rather than to the settlement itself. See section "Formal award of city status" below for more details.--> in Buckinghamshire,<!-- Yes, Buckinghamshire the ceremonial county, which contains two administrative counties (unitary authorities), Buckinghamshire Council [q.v.] (80% of county) and Milton Keynes City Council [q.v.] (20% of county; urban MK is 20% of the CoMK UA). --> England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 census, the population of its urban area was 264,349. The River Great Ouse forms the northern boundary of the urban area; a tributary, the River Ouzel, meanders through its linear parks and balancing lakes. Approximately 25% of the urban area is parkland or woodland, including two Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). By design, the city comprises many well-delineated neighbourhoods.

In the 1960s, the government decided that a further generation of new towns in the south east of England was needed to relieve housing congestion in London. Milton Keynes was to be the biggest yet, with a population of 250,000 and area of . At designation, its area incorporated the existing towns of Bletchley, Fenny Stratford, Wolverton and Stony Stratford,

In the 1960s, the UK government decided that a further generation of new towns in the South East of England was needed to relieve housing congestion in London. Since the 1950s, overspill housing for several London boroughs had been constructed in Bletchley. Further studies in the 1960s identified north Buckinghamshire as a possible site for a large new town, a new city, encompassing the existing towns of Bletchley, Stony Stratford, and Wolverton. The New Town (informally and in planning documents, "New City") was to be the biggest yet, with a target population of 250,000, in a "designated area" of . with the intention that it would be self-sustaining and eventually become a major regional centre in its own right.

The corporation's strongly modernist designs were regularly featured in the magazines Architectural Design and the Architects' Journal. MKDC was determined to learn from the mistakes made in the earlier new towns, and revisit the garden city ideals. They set in place the characteristic grid roads that run between districts ("grid squares"), as well as a programme of intensive planting, balancing lakes and parkland. Central Milton Keynes ("CMK") was not intended to be a traditional town centre but a central business and shopping district to supplement local centres embedded in most of the grid squares. This non-hierarchical devolved city plan was a departure from the English new towns tradition and envisaged a wide range of industry and diversity of housing styles and tenures. The largest and almost the last of the British New Towns, Milton Keynes has "stood the test of time far better than most, and has proved flexible and adaptable". The radical grid plan was inspired by the work of Melvin M. Webber, described by the founding architect of Milton Keynes, Derek Walker, as the "father of the city". Webber thought that telecommunications meant that the old idea of a city as a concentric cluster was out of date and that cities which enabled people to travel around them readily would be the thing of the future, achieving "community without propinquity" for residents.

The government wound up MKDC in 1992, 25 years after the new town was founded. Control was transferred to the Commission for New Towns (CNT) and then finally to English Partnerships, with planning functions returning to the local council (Milton Keynes Borough (now City) Council). From 2004 to 2011 a government quango, the Milton Keynes Partnership, had development control powers to accelerate the growth of Milton Keynes.

Formal award of city status

Along with many other towns and boroughs, Milton Keynes competed (unsuccessfully) for formal city status in the 2000, 2002 and 2012 competitions. However the Borough (including rural areas, in addition to the MK urban area) was successful in 2022, in the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours competition. On 15 August 2022, the Crown Office in Chancery announced formally that Queen Elizabeth II had ordained by letters patent that the Borough of Milton Keynes has been given city status. In law, it is the Borough rather than its eponymous settlement that has city status; nevertheless it is the latter that is more commonly known as the city.

Name

The name "Milton Keynes" was a reuse of the name of one of the original historic villages in the designated area,

Prior history

thumb|upright|The [[Milton Keynes Hoard of torcs and bracelets, on display at the British Museum]]

The area that was to become Milton Keynes encompassed a landscape that has a rich historic legacy. The area to be developed was largely farmland and undeveloped villages, but with evidence of permanent settlement dating back to the Bronze Age. Before construction began, every area was subject to detailed archaeological investigation: this work has provided an insight into the history of a very large sample of the landscape of south-central England. There is evidence of Stone Age, late Bronze Age/early Iron Age, Romano-British, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Medieval,

Bletchley Park, the site of World War II Allied code-breaking and Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic digital computer, is a major component of MK's modern history. It is now a flourishing heritage attraction, receiving hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.

When the boundary of Milton Keynes was defined in 1967, some 40,000 people lived in four towns and fifteen villages or hamlets in the "designated area".

Geography

Location and nearest settlements

Milton Keynes is in south central England, at the northern end of the South East England region, about north-west of London. The nearest large cities are Coventry, Leicester, Cambridge, London and Oxford.

Geology

Its surface geology is primarily gently rolling Oxford clay or, more formally:

Its highest points are in the centre () and at Woodhill on the western boundary (). The lowest point of the urban area is in Newport Pagnell, where the Ouzel joins the Great Ouse ().

Parks and environmental infrastructure

Because of the (poorly drained) clay soils and the urban hard surfaces, the development corporation identified water runoff into the Ouzel and its tributaries as a significant risk to be managed and so put in place two large balancing lakes (Caldecotte and Willen) and a number of smaller detention ponds. These provide an important leisure amenity for most of the year. Building in the floodplains of the Ouse and Ouzel was precluded too, thus providing long-distance linear parks that are within easy reach of most residents.

The north basin of Willen Lake is a bird sanctuary,

Just outside the Milton Keynes urban area lies Little Linford Wood, a conservation site and nature reserve managed by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust. It is considered to be one of the best habitats for dormice.

Climate

Milton Keynes experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb) as is typical of almost all of the United Kingdom.

The nearest Met Office weather station is in Woburn, Bedfordshire, just outside the south eastern fringe of Milton Keynes. As of 2014, local plans have protected the existing boulevard framework and set higher standards for architectural excellence.

Linear parks

thumb|A section of linear park, showing cyclists crossing a [[cattle grid on National Cycle Route 51]]

The floodplains of the Great Ouse and of its tributaries (the Ouzel and some brooks) have been protected as linear parks that run right through Milton Keynes; these were identified as important landscape and flood-management assets from the outset. At ten times larger than London's Hyde Park and a third larger than Richmond Park the landscape architects realised that the Royal Parks model would not be appropriate or affordable and drew on their National Park experience. As Bendixson and Platt (1992) write: "They divided the Ouzel Valley into 'strings, beads and settings'. The 'strings' are well-maintained routes, be they for walking, bicycling or riding; the 'beads' are sports centres, lakeside cafes and other activity areas; the 'settings' are self-managed land-uses such as woods, riding paddocks, a golf course and a farm".

The Grand Union Canal is another green route (and demonstrates the level geography of the area there is just one minor lock in its entire meandering route through from the southern boundary near Fenny Stratford to the "Iron Trunk" aqueduct over the Ouse at Wolverton at its northern boundary).

The initial park system was planned by Peter Youngman (Chief Landscape Architect), who also developed landscape precepts for all development areas: groups of grid squares were to be planted with different selections of trees and shrubs to give them distinct identities. The detailed planning and landscape design of parks and of the grid roads was evolved under the leadership of Neil Higson, who from 1977 took over from Youngman.

In a national comparison of urban areas by open space available to residents, Milton Keynes ranked highest in the UK. Milton Keynes is unusual in that most of the parks are owned and managed by a charity, the Milton Keynes Parks Trust rather than the local authority, to ensure that the management of the city's green spaces is largely independent of the council's expenditure priorities.

Forest city concept

The Development Corporation's original design concept aimed for a "forest city" and its foresters planted millions of trees from its own nursery in Newlands in the following years. , there are 22 million trees and shrubs in public open spaces. , approximately 25% of the urban area is parkland or woodland. It includes two Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Howe Park Wood and Oxley Mead.

Centre

As a key element of the planners' vision, Milton Keynes has a purpose built centre, with a very large "covered high street" shopping centre,

a theatre, municipal art gallery, hotels, central business district, an ecumenical church, Milton Keynes Civic Offices and central railway station.

Campbell Park, a formal park extending east from the business area to the Grand Union Canal, is described in the Pevsner Architectural Guides as " most imaginative park to have been laid out in Britain in the 20th century". The park is listed (grade 2) by Historic England,

Original towns and villages

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-->thumb|During World War II, British and American cryptographers at [[Bletchley Park broke a large number of Axis codes and ciphers, including the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers.]]

thumb|right|The 1815 windmill near [[New Bradwell village, beside the playing fields]]

thumb|right|Stony Stratford high street in festive mood

thumb|right|[[Peace Pagoda]]

Milton Keynes consists of many pre-existing towns and villages that anchored the urban design, as well as new infill developments. The modern-day urban area outside the original six towns (Bletchley, Fenny Stratford, Newport Pagnell, that are in the 10% most deprived in England, but also had twelve "lower super output areas" in the 10% least deprived in England. This contrast between areas of affluence and areas of deprivation in spite of a thriving local economy, inspired local charity The Community Foundation (in its 2016 "Vital Signs" report) to describe the position as a "Tale of Two Cities".

In 2018, the number of homeless young people sleeping rough in tents around CMK attracted national headlines as it became the apex of a national problem of poverty, inadequate mental health care and unaffordable housing. On a visit to refurbishment and extension work on the YMCA building, Housing Minister Heather Wheeler declared that "Nobody in this day and age should be sleeping on the street".

Culture, media and sport

Music

thumb|65,000 capacity by the [[Green Day Bullet in a Bible concert at the National Bowl]]

The open-air National Bowl is a 65,000-capacity venue for large-scale events.

In Wavendon, the Stables founded by the jazz musicians Cleo Laine and John Dankworth provides a venue for jazz, blues, folk, rock, classical, pop and world music. It presents around 400 concerts and over 200 educational events each year and also hosts the National Youth Music Camps summer camp for young musicians. In 2010, the Stables founded the biennial IF Milton Keynes International Festival, producing events in unconventional spaces and places across Milton Keynes.

Milton Keynes City Orchestra is a professional freelance orchestra based at Woughton Campus.

Arts, cinema, theatre and museums

The municipal public art gallery, MK Gallery, presents exhibitions of international contemporary art. The gallery was extended and remodelled in 2018/19 and includes an art-house cinema. Elsewhere in the city, there are two multiplex cinemas; one in CMK and one in Denbigh.

In 1999, the adjacent 1,400-seat Milton Keynes Theatre opened. The theatre has an unusual feature: the ceiling can be lowered closing off the third tier (gallery) to create a more intimate space for smaller-scale productions. There is a further professional performance space in Stantonbury.

thumb|Liz Leyh's iconic [[Concrete Cows]]

There are three museums: the Bletchley Park complex, which houses the museum of wartime cryptography; the National Museum of Computing (adjacent to Bletchley Park, with a separate entrance), which includes a working replica of the Colossus computer; and the Milton Keynes Museum, which includes the Stacey Hill Collection of rural life that existed before the foundation of MK, the British Telecom collection, and the original Concrete Cows. Other numerous public sculptures in Milton Keynes include work by Elisabeth Frink, Philip Jackson, Nicolas Moreton and Ronald Rae.

Milton Keynes Arts Centre offers a year-round exhibition programme, family workshops and courses. The centre is based in some of Linford Manor's historical exterior buildings, barns, almshouses and pavilions. The Westbury Arts Centre in Shenley Wood is based in a 16th-century grade II listed farmhouse building. Westbury Arts has been providing spaces and studios for professional artists since 1994.

Communications and media

For television, the city is allocated <!-- This is the officially allocated "territory" for local news. Yes, parts of MK can get the Oxford transmitter and can't get Sandy Heath, but this section is about content, not reception. --> to BBC East and ITV Anglia. For radio, Milton Keynes is served by two community radio stations (MKFM and Horizon Radio), and was previously served by Heart East (a regional commercial station based locally). BBC Three Counties Radio is the local BBC Radio station. CRMK (Cable Radio Milton Keynes) is a voluntary station broadcasting on the Internet.

, Milton Keynes has one local newspaper, the Milton Keynes Citizen, which has a significant online presence.

Sport

thumb|right|Stadium MK (in 2007)

Milton Keynes has professional teams in football (Milton Keynes Dons F.C. at Stadium MK), in ice hockey (Milton Keynes Lightning at Planet Ice Milton Keynes), and in Formula One (Red Bull Racing).

The Xscape indoor ski slope and the iFLY indoor sky diving facility are important attractions in CMK;

Many other sports are represented at amateur level.

Near the central station, in a space beside the former Milton Keynes central bus station, there is a purpose-built street skateboarding plaza named the Buszy.

Willen Lake hosts watersports on the south basin.

New technologies

In recent years, the City Council has promoted MK as a test-bed for experimental urban technologies. The most well-known of these is the Starship Technologies' (largely) autonomous delivery robots: Milton Keynes provided its world-first urban deployment of these units in 2018. By October 2020, said Starship, Milton Keynes had the "world's largest autonomous robot fleet". Other projects include the LUTZ Pathfinder pod, an autonomous (self-driving) vehicle built by the Transport Systems Catapult.

Notable people

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Sport

  • Charles Ademeno, former professional footballer
  • Dele Alli, professional footballer
  • Andrew Baggaley, English table tennis champion
  • Brothers George and Sam Baldock, professional footballers.
  • Ben Chilwell, professional footballer
  • Chris Clarke, English sprinter
  • Lee Hasdell, professional Mixed martial artist and Kickboxer
  • James Hildreth, professional cricketer
  • Liam Kelly, professional footballer
  • Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong the only Ghanaian winter Olympian.
  • Craig Pickering, English sprinter
  • Ian Poulter, PGA & European Tour golf professional. Member of the 2010 and 2012 European Ryder Cup Teams
  • Mark Randall, professional footballer
  • Antonee Robinson, professional footballer
  • Greg Rutherford, long jump gold medallist for Team GB at the 2012 Olympic Games
  • Ed Slater, professional rugby union player
  • Fallon Sherrock, professional darts player.
  • Sam Tomkins, professional rugby league player
  • Dan Wheldon (1978–2011), Indy car driver
  • Leah Williamson, professional footballer (England captain).

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Business

  • Jim Marshall (1923–2012), founder and CEO of Marshall Amplification was living in and ran his business from Milton Keynes when he died
  • Pete Winkelman, Former Chairman of Milton Keynes Dons Football Club, owner of Linford Manor recording studios, long-term resident

Academic

  • Christopher B-Lynch, (visiting) Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Cranfield University, responsible for inventing the eponymously named B-Lynch suture
  • Alan P. F. Sell (1935–2016), academic and theologian lived in Milton Keynes in his later years and died there
  • Alan Turing (1912–1954), played a significant role in the creation of the modern computer. He lodged at the Crown Inn, Shenley Brook End, while working at Bletchley Park

Stage, screen and media

  • Errol Barnett, an anchor and correspondent for CNN
  • Emily Bergl, an actress known for her roles in Desperate Housewives and Shameless
  • Emika, born Ema Jolly, a musical artist
  • Richard Macer, documentary maker
  • Clare Nasir, the meteorologist, TV and radio personality, was born in Milton Keynes in 1970
  • Kevin Whately, professional actor

<!-- Jo Whiley lives in rural Northamptonshire near Milton Keynes, not in Milton Keynes itself -->

Literature

<!-- No easily found citation for Hutson, so hidden until provided * Shaun Hutson, Novelist of horror novels and dark urban thrillers, has lived in Milton Keynes for several years. -->

  • Sarah Pinborough, English horror writer
  • Jack Trevor Story, novelist, was a long-term resident of Milton Keynes

Politics

  • Frank Markham (Sir Sydney Frank Markham, MP) (18971975), born in Stony Stratford and was local MP (19511964).
  • Nat Wei, Baron Wei, member of the House of Lords (born in Watford, grew up in Milton Keynes)

Music

Individual

  • Bob Leith, drummer for the Kingston upon Thames band Cardiacs and others went to school in Milton Keynes and formed his first bands there including Part 1
  • Adam Ficek, drummer of London band Babyshambles
  • Gordon Moakes, the bassist for the London-based rock band Bloc Party

Bands

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  • Capdown, a ska punk band, came from and formed in Milton Keynes in 1997
  • Fellsilent, a metal band, come from and formed in Milton Keynes in 2003
  • Tesseract, a djent band, formed as a full live act in Milton Keynes in 2007. Tesseract's guitarist, songwriter and producer Acle Kahney is also a former member of Fellsilent.
  • RavenEye, the rock band, formed in Milton Keynes in 2014

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Freedom of the City

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

</references>

Sources

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  • Official visitor website for Milton Keynes (Milton Keynes Council agency)
  • (Independent Television News)
  • City Discovery Centre (MK urban studies centre)
  • Urban Design magazine"Milton Keynes at 40"
  • Milton Keynes and the area (1968), on BFI Player
  • Milton Keynes - a village city (1973), on BFI Player
  • C. 5800 words. (The opening paragraph about astronomical alignment is not true.)

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