Today the Government published its big report on New Towns. On paper, it’s all very glossy — Britain has low productivity, a housing shortage, ageing infrastructure, regional inequality — and the solution they’ve landed on? Build new towns at speed and at scale. At least 10,000 homes in each, delivered by powerful “development corporations” with the authority to seize land, override local planning, and push schemes through.
And Milton Keynes is right in the crosshairs.
We’ve been named a “Renewed Town” — with promises of a reinvigorated city centre, expansion around the edges, and a new “Mass Rapid Transit system” to tie it all together. It sounds shiny: “placemaking,” “thriving communities,” “vision-led.” But once you peel back the buzzwords, there are some serious questions.
Control without accountability
The Taskforce is clear: delivery should be driven by development corporations. These are unelected bodies with sweeping powers — to buy land through compulsory purchase, to act as the local planning authority, even to call in and block applications.
In the past, Milton Keynes Development Corporation was set up in 1967 to oversee the planning and growth of the new city. It delivered a lot, but it didn’t get everything right. One of the weakest points was democratic accountability — and I fear this time it will be lost in an even bigger way.
Do we really want to become a country where decisions of this scale are taken out of the hands of local representatives and imposed from above? Democracy may be messy and slow, but it is rooted in accountability. Once that is stripped away, how can residents have confidence that these towns are being built for them? Has anyone even asked them?
And who will sit on these new development corporations? Do they know what Milton Keynes was designed to be?
The report talks about creating high “urban density,” but people here value our wide open spaces and grid roads. MK is different by design — and that’s what people love. And how will these people on DC know anything about it?
The powers of local councillors will be taken away and handed to development corporations. They will build what they want, where they want, in whatever style they want. Councillors will have no say. Neither will residents.
Growth at what cost?
The Taskforce talks of 40,000 new homes in Milton Keynes. Is that on top of what the council is already planning? Our city already has 39,500 homes allocated but not built and some more homes included in plans. Or is there more still to come on the periphery? We know land has already been identified. But again, it’s not clear to me- maybe I'm not getting it.
Milton Keynes has consistently exceeded its housebuilding targets — yet affordability has not improved. House prices are now 8.47 times average earnings. Developers say homes are hard to sell, while first-time buyers say they can’t afford them and end up stuck at home with parents.
So the question is not how many houses we build, but who they are for. Will these estates actually help young people, families, and key workers? Or will they repeat the same mistakes of the past — vast numbers of homes, but little that’s truly affordable?
The report says a minimum of 40% should be affordable, with 20% for social housing. But in the same breath it admits those targets will be a major “cost driver.” If affordability is already broken in Milton Keynes, how will this help?
Broken basics and broken trust
We live with horrific flooding problems, collapsing roads, and rural villages with narrow lanes and barely any street lighting. Schools and GPs are overstretched. We have one hospital already at capacity.
How does it make sense to concrete over the green spaces we love just to build “new” green spaces somewhere else? Residents see the basics crumbling around them — but the Government thinks the answer is to pile on 40,000 more homes.
Pie in the sky promises
The report talks about transforming how we travel, with a new “Mass Rapid Transit system.” But let’s be honest — what does that really mean? It’s buses driven to platforms, rebranded as a “metro.”
Milton Keynes was designed around the car. You cannot fundamentally rip up a city’s design overnight and expect people to switch to a bus that doesn’t yet exist and you can’t just slap a “metro” badge on buses and pretend that fixes transport.
Consultation in name only
The report makes much of “community engagement” — but that is not consultation. Residnets will have no say in this. At all.
The Government’s own Infrastructure and Planning Bill is designed to limit consultation even further. Local people will get little chance to comment on the biggest developments in their communities. So while ministers talk about giving residents a say, the legislation does the exact opposite.
This is Labour doing what it does best: imposing top-down decisions, while telling people they’ve been “listened to.”
Losing what makes Milton Keynes different
Milton Keynes was designed to be different: grid roads, green corridors, a balance of urban and rural. That’s our identity.
But if the future means high-rise towers around Campbell Park, dense blocks of flats on every skyline, and farmland north and east swallowed up — are we still different by design? Or are we just another overstretched, overbuilt city?
Food security and farmland
Every acre of farmland lost is an acre of food we can’t grow here. Our farmers provide lamb, beef, crops — all essential to food security. Once it’s gone, we’re more dependent on imports. And if supply chains fail or foreign powers interfere, what happens then?
We should be protecting our farming communities, not forcing them off their land so developers and Government can cash in.
Infrastructure first
Nobody denies we need homes. I am not against development — I know it must come. But it has to be done with residents, not to residents.
And it must come with proper infrastructure. Milton Keynes Council itself admits our roads are decaying — all built at the same time, now all failing at the same time. We have one hospital. Schools and GP surgeries are already overstretched. Traffic jams stop people getting to work, and poor transport links damage productivity. Building at scale without fixing the basics is not progress. It is recklessness.
Who pays?
The report leans on “capturing land value uplift” — basically, buying farmland cheap, granting planning permission, then selling it at a profit to fund infrastructure. It also talks about “upfront Government funding.” But let’s be honest: who ends up paying?
Taxpayers. Always. Either through higher national taxes, new local levies, or hidden charges on parking, transport, and businesses. Meanwhile developers argue “viability” to wriggle out of building affordable homes or local facilities.
So while ministers promise shiny new towns, the bill will land on your doorstep.
A vision worth questioning
The Taskforce calls this “vision-led development.” But whose vision? A Whitehall vision will never match the lived experience of Milton Keynes residents.
This is Labour chasing a manifesto pledge to build 1.4 million homes. It’s about numbers on a page, not listening to people who actually live here.
The questions we should be asking
· Who are these homes really for?
· What happens to our countryside and food security if farmland is lost forever?
· How can residents trust a process designed to cut them out of decision-making?
· And most of all: will a “Renewed Town” still feel like Milton Keynes — or will it destroy the very character that makes our city special?
· Where’s all our green spaces going?
Milton Keynes was born from bold planning in the 1960s. It thrived because it was different, because it was designed for people, and because it balanced growth with green space. That is the spirit we should carry forward.
Growth will come, but it must be rooted in accountability, sustainability, and the voices of local people. Anything less is not renewal — it is imposition.
The report is here : New Towns Taskforce: final reporthttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68d694b79cb44667f7a1cee7/New_Towns_Taskforce_Final_Report.pdf
