Milton Keynes is 50 Years Old

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Discussion

Yipper

Original Poster:

5,964 posts

89 months

Sunday 22nd January 2017
quotequote all
Passed through Milton Keynes for work a few days ago. Home of WD-40. Built the world's first programmable computer. Britain's fastest-growing city. Churches and pubs almost a thousand years old. Part of the Oxford-MK-Cambridge "golden triangle". Quietly becoming a tech hub to rival London (driverless cars, virtual reality, etc.). Greened up with 22 million trees inside the city boundary.

According to the Guardian, MK is 50 years old this month (1967-2017).

Looking at the Guardian comments, the town / city strongly divides opinion. Lots of memories of concrete cows, roundabouts, and MK Dons.

What are your thoughts?

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jan/20/50-...


motco

15,919 posts

245 months

Sunday 22nd January 2017
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It is not a city... getmecoat

B'stard Child

28,324 posts

245 months

Sunday 22nd January 2017
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Yipper said:
PLooking at the Guardian comments, the town / city strongly divides opinion. Lots of memories of concrete cows, roundabouts, and MK Dons.

What are your thoughts?
Too many roundabouts

RemyMartin81D

6,759 posts

204 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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B'stard Child said:
Yipper said:
PLooking at the Guardian comments, the town / city strongly divides opinion. Lots of memories of concrete cows, roundabouts, and MK Dons.

What are your thoughts?
Too many roundabouts
Best place to learn knee down.

I actually have no issue with Milton Keynes. Far far far worse places in the UK.

I mean it's not exactly fking Aldershot is it?

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Any town where the planners name a road "V8" must have some attraction.

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

243 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Yipper said:
Passed through Milton Keynes for work a few days ago. Home of WD-40. Built the world's first programmable computer.
Nope. Berlin, 1941, not MK and rather more than 50 years ago.

Rick101

6,959 posts

149 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Hellhole. I absolutely despise the place.

Worked there for several years before seeing the light, taking a substantial pay cut and coming home to good old Yorkshire.
I do not miss it in the slightest.

KAgantua

3,848 posts

130 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Rick101 said:
Hellhole. I absolutely despise the place.

Worked there for several years before seeing the light, taking a substantial pay cut and coming home to good old Yorkshire.
I do not miss it in the slightest.
Why did you not like it?

C0ffin D0dger

3,440 posts

144 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Must say I wouldn't really fancy living there however it was quite a groundbreaking scheme back in the 1960's and it seems that it is never to be repeated.

Image what building another new town on on similar scale would do for the UK now: put a big dent in the housing shortfall, ease our immigration pressures, create loads of jobs, boost the economy, etc. Just a shame nobody seems to be that forward thinking anymore.

Murph7355

37,651 posts

255 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Bland. Inoffensive, but bland.

FN2TypeR

7,091 posts

92 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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B'stard Child said:
Yipper said:
PLooking at the Guardian comments, the town / city strongly divides opinion. Lots of memories of concrete cows, roundabouts, and MK Dons.

What are your thoughts?
Too many roundabouts
Try Swindon!

WestyCarl

3,217 posts

124 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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I work in MK (but live 15 mile away) and it doesn't deserve it's "hellhole, bland comments".

- Lots green areas/ parks / lakes, probably more than other large towns
- Great leisure / activity facilities
- dedicated cycle lanes all over the city (not just white line painted 2ft in form the kerb!)
- Safe covered shopping center plus a number of out of town retail parks
- Good access to M1 / M40
- Close to countryside

If it wasn't so damm expensive for housing I'd probably live here.

Cyder

7,045 posts

219 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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WestyCarl said:
I work in MK (but live 15 mile away) and it doesn't deserve it's "hellhole, bland comments".

- Lots green areas/ parks / lakes, probably more than other large towns
- Great leisure / activity facilities
- dedicated cycle lanes all over the city (not just white line painted 2ft in form the kerb!)
- Safe covered shopping center plus a number of out of town retail parks
- Good access to M1 / M40
- Close to countryside

If it wasn't so damm expensive for housing I'd probably live here.
I tend to agree, I live about 10 miles outside and work across the M1 from MK and it's very convenient, easy to get around, easy to park and well thought out.

The only bit I disagree with is that I'd have no intentions to live, the place does nothing for me from a living point of view, but that's probably because I'm a village boy at heart.

Hosenbugler

1,854 posts

101 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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I've no real experience of MK , but most of the comments I've heard of it over the years, including several from people who live there have not been positive.

Having said that, its a new town, Peterborough is similar, and I do have a lot of experience of that city, its a sthole, like all too many of our cities, don't even mention the toilet on the Thames, biggest st tip of the lot.

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

243 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Hosenbugler said:
Having said that, its a new town, Peterborough is similar,
You must have a long memory, Peterborough has been there, by that name, since the 12th Century, and human habitation on the site dates back to the paleolithic, at least.

Composite Guru

2,205 posts

202 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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I've worked there for the best part of 20 years.

The place has grown so much in that time and has a good variation of types of work too.

Not to forget the petrolhead aspect that Red Bull Racing is based there. Their place is expanding all the time.

Hosenbugler

1,854 posts

101 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Einion Yrth said:
Hosenbugler said:
Having said that, its a new town, Peterborough is similar,
You must have a long memory, Peterborough has been there, by that name, since the 12th Century, and human habitation on the site dates back to the paleolithic, at least.
Peterborough has had a cathedral since those times yes, but from 1969/70 on it was expanded as an overspill new town, hence the formation of the Peterborough Development corporation. MK and the PDC were different examples of the same thing. MK, I beleive, was origianlly a small village , extent since the Domesday book.

JB!

5,254 posts

179 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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MK born an bred.

Like everywhere it's not without its issues, but its far nicer than alot of town's I've spent time in.

Flaws are around ground rent and land prices, you don't get independent anything centrally, no indie bars or clubs, no indie shops or specialists.

Massive costs in maintaining the impressive infrastructure too, and in modernising now 50 year old council estates, and some expensive housing compared to other local towns price alot of us younger locals out.

But, it's easy to get around, everything is open late, and there is tonnes of work, and a good north-south connection (just a shame it takes forever to get east-west).

It could do well with continuing the grid structure and garden city approach, as the new estates are built far too close to the roads and with far less planting.

Rick101

6,959 posts

149 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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KAgantua said:
Why did you not like it?
Artificial, dirty, expensive, full of cock-en-knees, dual carriageways everywhere, ste pubs, a mall for a town centre, kebab vans in residential areas, roundabouts, Fishermead, crap drivers, train station with no pub, wierd market, square trees, Netherfield, graffiti ridden piss soaked subways and worst of all locals telling you how wonderful it is.

Working 12 hr shifts and lodging away from home probably didn't help but I really wasn't taken with the place.

oyster

12,577 posts

247 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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If your idea of a fun lunch break is to get in your car from your previously paid-for parking space, drive to the shopping centre, spend ages finding a parking space, pay again for the space, have lunch at a drab chain restaurant, drive car back to office, look for parking space again as your original one has gone, pay again for parking if you can't get back in exactly the same zone.

Then find you've been fired for taking a 3 hour lunch break.


Or there's my current office in London where I have several independent sandwich shops and delis, within no more than 60 seconds walk from the front door.