Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes (/kiːnz/ ⓘ KEENZ) is a city[c] in Buckinghamshire, England, about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of London.[b] At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was 264,349.[2] 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 and includes two Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs).
For Milton Keynes, the original village, see Middleton, Milton Keynes. For the built-up area, see Milton Keynes urban area. For the local authority area, see City of Milton Keynes.
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 22,000 acres (9,000 ha). At designation, its area incorporated the existing towns of Bletchley, Fenny Stratford, Wolverton and Stony Stratford,[d] along with another fifteen villages and farmland in between. These settlements had an extensive historical record since the Norman conquest; detailed archaeological investigations before development revealed evidence of human occupation from the Neolithic period, including the Milton Keynes Hoard of Bronze Age gold jewellery. The government established Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) to design and deliver this new city. The Corporation decided on a softer, more human-scaled landscape than in the earlier English new towns but with an emphatically modernist architecture. Recognising how traditional towns and cities had become choked in traffic, they established a grid of distributor roads about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) between edges, leaving the spaces between to develop more organically. An extensive network of shared paths for leisure cyclists and pedestrians criss-crosses through and between them. Rejecting the residential tower block concept that had become unpopular, they set a height limit of three storeys outside Central Milton Keynes.
Facilities include a 1,400-seat theatre, a municipal art gallery, two multiplex cinemas, an ecumenical central church, a 400-seat concert hall, a teaching hospital, a 30,500-seat football stadium, an indoor ski-slope and a 65,000-capacity open-air concert venue. Seven railway stations serve the Milton Keynes urban area (one inter-city). The Open University is based here and there is a small campus of the University of Bedfordshire. Most major sports are represented at amateur level; Red Bull Racing (Formula One), MK Dons (association football), and Milton Keynes Lightning (ice hockey) are its professional teams. The Peace Pagoda overlooking Willen Lake was the first such to be built in Europe. The many works of sculpture in parks and public spaces include the iconic Concrete Cows at Milton Keynes Museum.
Milton Keynes is among the most economically productive localities in the UK, ranking highly against a number of criteria. It has the UK's fifth-highest number of business startups per capita (but equally of business failures). It is home to several major national and international companies. Despite economic success and personal wealth for some, there are pockets of nationally significant poverty. The employment profile is composed of about 90% service industries and 9% manufacturing.
Education[edit]
Schools[edit]
In early planning, education provision was carefully integrated into the development plans with the intention that school journeys would, as far as possible, be made by walking and cycling. Each residential grid square was provided with a primary school (ages 5 to 8) for c.240 children, and for each two squares there was a middle school (ages 8 to 12) for c.480 children. For each eight squares there was a large secondary education campus, to contain between two and four schools for a total of 3,000 – 4,500 children. A central resource area served all the schools on a campus. In addition, each campus included a leisure centre with indoor and outdoor sports facilities and a swimming pool, plus a theatre. These facilities were available to the public outside school hours, thus maximising use of the investment.[136] Changes in central government policy from the 1980s onwards subsequently led to much of this system being abandoned. Some schools have since been merged and sites sold for development, many converted to academies, and the leisure centres outsourced to commercial providers.
As in most parts of the UK, the state secondary schools in Milton Keynes are comprehensives,[137] although schools in the rest of Buckinghamshire still use the tripartite system.[138] Private schools are also available.[139]
Universities and colleges[edit]
The Open University's headquarters are in the Walton Hall district; though because this is a distance learning institution, the only students resident on campus are approximately 200 full-time postgraduates. Cranfield University, an all-postgraduate institution, is in nearby Cranfield, Bedfordshire. Milton Keynes College provides further education up to foundation degree level. A campus of the University of Bedfordshire provides some tertiary education facilities locally.
As of 2023, Milton Keynes is the UK's largest population centre without its own conventional university, a shortfall that the Council aims to rectify.[140] In January 2019, the council and its partner, Cranfield University, invited proposals to design a campus near the Central station for a new university, code-named MK:U.[141] However this project seems unlikely to proceed, following a government decision in January 2023 to deny funding.[142] In June 2023, the Open University announced that it would "initiate work on the strategic and financial case to relocate [from] the OU's existing campus at Walton Hall to a new site adjacent to the central railway station" and possibly commence teaching full-time undergraduates.[143]
Through Milton Keynes University Hospital, the city also has links with the University of Buckingham's medical school.
City development archive and library[edit]
Milton Keynes City Discovery Centre at Bradwell Abbey holds an extensive archive about the planning and development of Milton Keynes and has an associated research library.[144] The centre also offers an education programme (with a focus on urban geography and local history) to schools, universities and professionals.[144]
Government[edit]
Local government[edit]
The responsible local government is Milton Keynes City Council, which administers the City of Milton Keynes, a unitary authority, and non-metropolitan county in law, since May 1996.[177] Until then, it was controlled by Buckinghamshire County Council. Historically, most of the area that became Milton Keynes was known as the "Three Hundreds of Newport".[50]
The unitary authority area, which extends beyond the ONS-defined Milton Keynes built-up area and encompasses the town of Olney and many rural villages and hamlets, is fully parished.[178]
International co-operation[edit]
Although Milton Keynes has no formalised twinning agreements, it has partnered and co-operated with various cities over the years. The most contact has been with Almere, Netherlands, especially on energy management and urban planning.[179] For several years from 1995, the city co-operated with Tychy, Poland,[180][181] after participating in the European City Cooperation System in Tychy in March 1994.[182]
Due to the twinning of the borough and the equivalent administrative region of Bernkastel-Wittlich, the council worked with Bernkastel-Kues, Germany, for example on art projects.[183]
In 2017 they partnered with the Chinese fellow smart city of Yinchuan.[184]
Infrastructure[edit]
Hospitals[edit]
Milton Keynes University Hospital, in the Eaglestone district, is an NHS general hospital with an Accident and Emergency unit.[185] It is associated for medical teaching purposes with the University of Buckingham medical school.[186] There are two small private hospitals: BMI Healthcare's Saxon Clinic and Ramsay Health Care's Blakelands Hospital.[187][188]
Prison[edit]
There is a Category A male prison, HMP Woodhill, on the western boundary.[189] A section of the prison is a Young Offenders Institution.[190]
Geography[edit]
Location and nearest settlements[edit]
Milton Keynes is in south central England, at the northern end of the South East England region,[227] about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of London.[3][4][5]
The nearest larger[t] towns are Northampton, Bedford, Luton and Aylesbury.[228] The nearest larger[u] cities are Coventry, Leicester, Cambridge, London and Oxford.[229]
Geology[edit]
Its surface geology is primarily gently rolling Oxford clay or, more formally: