Milton Keynes is one of the country’s original new towns. Now that it could be the location for one of the government’s new round of new towns let’s take a look at some current and planned projects here.

Milton Keynes was created as a new town in 1967 under the auspices of a development corporation. It was designed around a then-futuristic car-based system of grid roads connecting new districts and incorporating existing small towns and villages. It is widely accepted as being the most successful of the post war new town projects.

The population here has grown fast over the years. The original plan envisaged a town of 250,000 people. This was reached by 2020 and it is estimated the population will shortly top 300,000. Projections suggest it could reach 410,000 by 2050. As something of an endorsement of its progress the new town was elevated to city status in 2022.

The area has also proved to be something of an economic success story over the decades. It is home to around 12,500 businesses providing 180,000 jobs. Its economy is largely service based, especially around professional and business services, and more lately on logistics and future-facing technology-based industries. It sits with the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor, an area which the government has identified as a ‘vibrant and innovative hub for globally renowned science and technology firms and internationally successful start ups’.

Milton Keynes benefits from superior transport links, being right on the M1 and having a 30 minute train service into London. Milton Keynes will be at the centre of the new East-West Rail line, which will eventually connect Oxford, Bicester, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge. The new line is now complete to allow services from Oxford to Bletchley and Milton Keynes to begin, but this has been delayed by an industrial dispute. It is projected that the new line could be running through to Bedford by 2030 and to Cambridge by the mid 2030s.

Milton Keynes is a university city, but not in the conventional sense. It is the headquarters of the Open University. While most of the university’s students study off campus, their staff and academics are based here. Cranfield University and the University of Bedfordshire are nearby and some students look for accommodation in the city. In recent years both the Open University and Cranfield University have previously expressed an interest in opening up physical campuses here, which could potentially be home to 5,000 or even up to 15,000 students.