1960s Plans For A New City in North Buckinghamshire, 1967 Designation of Milton Keynes
In the 1960s, the Government decided that a further generation of new towns in South East England was needed to take the projected population increase of London, after the initial 1940s/1950s wave. Bletchley had already been considered as a new town in this first wave, and had subsequently in the 1950s the London County Council constructed overspill housing for several London boroughs there.
Buckinghamshire County Council's architect, Fred Pooley, had spent considerable time in the early sixties developing ideas for a new town in the Bletchley and Wolverton area. He developed a futuristic proposal based on a monorail linking a series of individual townships to a major town centre. The county council published the proposals in 1966, but it was too late to influence the government.
In 1964, a Ministry of Housing and Local Government study recommended "a new city" near Bletchley. A further MoH&LG study in 1965 proposed that the proposed new city would encompass the existing towns of Bletchley, Stony Stratford and Wolverton. It was to be the biggest new town yet, with a target population of 250,000. A Draft Order was made in April 1966. The Housing Minister, Anthony Greenwood, made his formal announcement on 23 January 1967. The designated area was 21,870 acres (8,850 ha), somewhat smaller than the 27,000 acres (11,000 ha) in the Draft Order (due to the exclusion of the Calverton Wealds). The name "Milton Keynes" was also unveiled at this time, taken from the existing village of Milton Keynes on the site. The site was deliberately located (roughly) equidistant from London, Birmingham, Leicester, Oxford and Cambridge. With its large target population, Milton Keynes was eventually intended to become a city. All subsequent planning documents and popular local usage make use of the term "city" or "new city", even though formal city status has not been awarded.
When the boundary of Milton Keynes was defined, some 40,000 people lived in the "designated area" of 88.51 km² (21,833 acres). The area was split between five existing local authorities: Bletchley, Newport Pagnell and Wolverton Urban Districts together with the Newport Pagnell Rural District and the Winslow Rural District. Planning control was taken from elected local authorities and delegated to the Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC).
Read more about this topic: History Of Milton Keynes
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