The Commission for the New Towns, which will be around for at least five more years, arouses mixed reactions in neighbouring authorities, writes James Robinson.
Marketing Milton Keynes cannot be easy. Reactions to the town are littered with jokes about concrete cows, accusations that it is dominated by the car, and complaints about its lack of leisure facilities. John Napleton, director central of the Commission for the New Towns, is philosophical about the criticism hurled at the CNT’s flagship project. “We still get that from people who haven’t been here,” he says.” It is one of the frustrations of life. It’s hard to overcome preconceived notions of what a place is like.”
Few can know Milton Keynes better than Napleton. He has lived there for 23 years, and has been instrumental in shaping virtually all that he surveys from his office in the centre of the town. The commission assumed responsibility for the development of Milton Keynes in 1992, following the dissolution of Milton Keynes Development Corporation.
Preconceived notions
Lambert Smith Hampton’s Richard Forman outlines its responsibilities: “The CNT’s brief is: firstly, to sell its land and its assets; and, secondly, in order to do that, promote Milton Keynes and open up the remaining land for development.”
Forman, at least, is satisfied with the job it has done so far. “It has taken on the mantle of the development corporation . . . [and], within the constraints of the market, has done pretty well. Some feared that it would only pay lip service to [its brief of] promoting Milton Keynes, but I think it has fufilled its obligations in that respect.”
The commission has placed great emphasis on promoting the town at home and abroad. Nevertheless, its principal task is to sell its remaining land at the highest achievable prices, maximising its returns to the Treasury.
CNT’s annual accounts for the year ending March 1996 reported that 1,234ha (3,049 acres) of land in Milton Keynes was still in CNT ownership. Employment land accounted for 387ha (956 acres) and residential 697ha (1,722 acres), with the balance zoned for community or leisure uses.
The need to sell is less pressing following the government’s decision to extend the commission’s lifespan. Originally due to be dissolved in March 1998, it will now survive, albeit in a different form, for “at least another five years,” according to the Department of the Environment. Napleton expects the commission’s lifespan to stretch well beyond 2003.
DOE Minister of State David Curry said last May that the commission would continue to deal with “the disposal of the remaining New Town land holdings.” In addition, it is likely to take on responsibility for disposing of any assets still in the hands of the Urban Development Corporations and Housing Action Trusts when they are wound up in 1998.
The precise role the commission will fufil post-1998 is still under discussion.
But one thing is certain. The new organisation will be a streamlined one, with a reduced staff – 100 at most – and far less office space. According to a DOE spokeswoman, a statement on the role of the revamped body is expected next month.
Negotiations are clearly at a sensitive stage. Ask Napleton to comment and he remains tight-lipped. Suggest that more, not less, resources may be needed in order for the commission to fufill its revised role and he simply smiles. He would love to comment, he says, but remains restrained.
In the meantime, there is more land to be developed. Currently, most activity is centred on the eastern side of the town. Kingston and Brinklow are the latest employment areas to be opened up.
The areas are proving popular with distribution companies attracted by their proximity to the M1. Napleton says that the next step will be to open up land to the west. “As land on the eastern flank becomes a scarce and very expensive resource, we will be focusing our attention on the western flank and overcoming the perception that it is a long way from the M1.”
The commission will also be marketing the area on the back of its accessibility to the M40 via the A421.
A carefully phased release of land has ensured that prices have been maintained. Napleton values eastern flank land at £741,300 to £803,075 per ha (£300,000 to £325,000 per acre). Yet some argue that land prices are too high.
“There is demand for good-quality modern industrial and warehouse units of between 9,290m2 (10,000 sq ft) and 1,858m2 (20,000 sq ft) [but] there is very little supply to meet the demand,” says Chesterton’s Christian Mathews. “A number of developers have recognised this opportunity and have tried to secure sites from the CNT for speculative units.”
Mathews claims that the CNT’s high asking price has deterred developers from building speculatively. “People are reluctant to fund a speculative scheme…. where rents are at the moment, they don’t see the risk as acceptable. . . The development corporation would perhaps have tailored land prices accordingly. The CNT’s goals are a little more financially driven whereas the development corporation was more concerned with ensuring there was a good mix of product available at all times.”
This is an argument that Napleton refutes. The lack of speculative development, he says, is a result of market trends rather than local conditions. “It is less a factor of the availability of land at the right price. The real factor is that the industry is less interested in speculative development. Distribution companies now require purpose-built units . . . the developers are seeking a high level of end-users.”
The CNT casts a long shadow not just over Milton Keynes but over the whole of Buckinghamshire and neighbouring Bedfordshire. For the most part, Buckinghamshire is happy to have Milton Keynes within its boundaries. It is regarded as a focus for development in a county otherwise restrained by green belt. The county structure plan seeks to concentrate most of the county’s residential and commercial growth in the town.
But Bedfordshire county council sees the town as more of a threat. Attracting investment to the county is not easy when one of the biggest development sites in the country is just across the county line. The CNT’s ability to market the site worldwide, and its powers to grant outline planning permission on the land it owns, make the task even harder.
“It is a problem,” admits Bedfordshire county council assistant principal planning officer Kevin Owen. “We can’t compete. [Milton Keynes] is a regional growth centre and they have to meet further growth requirements. But where does that leave adjacent counties where there aren’t those level of resources?”
The sometimes-strained relationship between the CNT and Bedfordshire county council was evident in the former’s objection to the latest Bedfordshire structure plan. The commission took exception to proposals to create a large strategic site north of Luton, in an attempt to attract investment to the county.
The CNT contributed to the Examination in Public, was supported by the EIP Panel’s report, and the proposals were shelved.
Its 1996 report and accounts outline the reasons for its objections. “CNT had sought to ensure that Milton Keynes remains an area for growth in employment and that development outside the designated area does not begin until the city has been substantially completed as originally planned.”
Milton Keynes borough council economic development officer Neil Darwin is less subtle: “We would want development to be in our area rather than theirs – that is the bottom line.”
Peter Hawkes, now at Chesterton but previously employed as a planner at the development corporation, identifies the real difficulty which Bedfordshire faces so long as the Milton Keynes project is incomplete. “The government invested heavily in Milton Keynes in the early years . . . and having invested that amount of money, it makes sense for the taxpayers of Britain to get the return on their money before opening up other development sites unnecessarily.”
Some fear that the CNT’s gradual demise will have an adverse effect on the continued growth of the town. As more of its land is sold, so its resources will be reduced and its influence wane. Napleton says that the CNT will still be able to grant outline planning permission for land that it owns after the 1998 remodelling. “We have planning powers and we are keeping them,” he says. But detailed planning permission, as now, will be granted by the borough council.
As more land falls into private ownership, occupiers will need to look increasingly towards the council rather than the CNT. The council has set up the Milton Keynes Economic Partnership in an attempt to formulate and implement an economic strategy for the region. Members include the Large Employers Association, the Chamber of Commerce and Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes councils. CNT attends all the partnership’s meetings.
The partnership has produced a Joint Economic Development Strategy for the 1997-2002 period, which aims to ensure some continuity as power shifts from the CNT to the borough council. But, noble intentions aside, there are some doubts about whether the council will be able to do an effective job.
“The CNT is well resourced. If and when it does eventually wind down, we will be left on our own. We will have control over our own destiny and we know what we need to do – it’s a question of how we resource it,” says Darwin. European funding is one avenue that is currently being investigated.
Meanwhile, Napleton is trying hard to address another stereotype – that Milton Keynes is something of a cultural wasteland. A new £28m theatre and art gallery should go some way towards redressing the balance. The Arts Council of England awarded a £19.6m grant to the project at the beginning of last year, and the complex is due to open in 1998. Napleton hopes that bars and restaurants will follow in its wake.
