Urban Eden

Category: Press Releases

  • How we treat those in need is a measure of our humanity

    How we treat those in need is a measure of our humanity

    I was recently delighted to attend the fundraising concert Rays of Sunshine a charity choir concert with food which took place at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone in November. It was an event to raise funds for the Sunflower Ukrainian Supplementary School and was very enjoyable, featuring a highly entertaining, hugely professional, accompanied choir: MK Musica.

    One thing I never knew before was how totally accomplished and superb are Ukrainian bakers – their macarons frankly putting French rivals to shame. I mention this event because it shows just how well Ukrainian refugees have been welcomed into our hearts, here in MK. If you’d like to help, visit ukraineappeal.org.uk.

    Conversely the same cannot be said for some of our other refugees, those apparently fleeing from persecution in Yemen, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and even Turkey. I recently watched a video shot by some anonymous, self-appointed watchdog who styles himself TruthHurts101UK. You can easily find it on YouTube. This all stems from the fact that somewhere between 140 and 200 immigrants, most of whom have allegedly made their way here technically illegally in rubber dinghies, are now being housed, fed and supported by our government with the involvement of MKCC. They are all staying at the large and underused Ramada Hotel situated west of the M1 as part of the Newport Pagnell services.

    What our anonymous film-maker, and his many supporters and commentators appear to focus on, is that these immigrants are all, it seems, male only with no women or children present, and all of fighting age. The suggestion being that they are here to do us all harm. The rabble also comments on their apparent religion which they believe to be Islam, despite at least one of the briefly interviewed Ramada residents claiming to be a Turkish Kurd, only a majority of whom are Muslim, some being Christian, Zoroastrian, Yarsanist, Yazidist, Alevist or followers of Judaism.

    According to Wikipedia “During the violent suppressions of numerous Kurdish rebellions since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, such as the Sheikh Said Rebellion, the Ararat rebellion, and the Dersim Rebellion, massacres have periodically been committed against the Kurds, with one prominent incident being the Zilan Massacre. The Turkish government denied the existence of Kurds. The words “Kurds” or “Kurdistan” were banned in any language by the Turkish government, though “Kurdish” was allowed in census reports. Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish languages were officially prohibited in public and private life. Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. In Turkey, it is illegal to use Kurdish as a language of instruction in both public and private schools. The Kurdish language is only allowed as a subject in some schools.”

    So, one may reasonably ask why we are so keen to help the put-upon Ukrainians and so apparently unkeen to help the similarly put-upon Kurds? Another issue for these self-appointed guardians of Britishness is that our government is giving them fully-serviced, centrally-heated accommodation, three full meals a day, ‘pocket money’ and even, it is alleged, free cigarettes whilst our lifetime-of-tax-paying-pensioners go without the winter-fuel payment or frankly very much else, whilst we have the highest fuel prices in Europe and food price inflation is off the scale. My personal experience of this is Asda’s eight pack of Pain au Chocolat. This was just £1 until about a year ago. It’s now £1.90. I would like to apologise here for being apparently obsessed with French-style baked goods in this column, just as I was apparently obsessed with Germany in last month’s!

    So back to the subject in hand. How true it is that we are treating these immigrants so well and how justified that is, is hard to tell, but one of these refugees even offered our Mr. Anonymous a cigarette when he enquired about them, seeming to have no issues about their apparent cost. Do our governments both local and national act as they should or do the people feel outraged, and if so, is this outrage justified? Frankly I really don’t know, but I do care. Surely how we treat those in need is a measure of our humanity and identifying any groups of people as somehow unworthy or somehow ‘not-human’ is the start of every oppression we have ever seen?

    What I do know is that Christmas is coming, and I wish you all the very best for the festive season. May all your days be happy and bright.

    Cheerio.

  • Eve of destruction for our grid roads

    Eve of destruction for our grid roads

    As I wrote last month, Milton Keynes City Council makes all the right noises about looking after our grid roads and even building new ones. But its real agendum is somewhat different.

    I think I have very adequately established in many columns here that there will never be any proper new grid roads, any new redways nor any new over- or underpasses. In recent years we have seen the council waste millions on schemes such as the now-long-unused bus-gate traffic lights near Junction 14 of the M1.

    What I would like to know is just how much money was wasted, who is making money from these ludicrous projects and how can such utterly misguided spending ever be justified while the citizens of MK beg for new, safe, under- or overpasses.

    All of that is bad enough but guess what? Our council now wishes to destroy several of the proper grid roads we still have left.

    Many will be familiar with 40mph speed limits and, in some cases unnecessary traffic-lit crossings already imposed on roads such as parts of the V10 Brickhill Street; the Countess Way extension of H7 Chaffron Way, V7 Saxon Street near Stadium MK and V4 Watling Street where the Western Expansion Area has no grid roads despite the council’s many promises.

    These limits have mostly been imposed using the excuse of road safety but the council has often then seized the opportunity to install traffic-lit pedestrian crossings too, perhaps to avoid building proper under- or overpasses as laid out in the original master plan for MK and as oft falsely promised by said council.

    How is it that councils in Germany can totally rebuild beautiful medieval town centres destroyed by British bombers in the Second World War in exquisite detail and meanwhile the burghers of Milton Keynes are happy to destroy that which the people of this city have repeatedly told them we love.

    One might reasonably argue that if there have been accidents on these roads while the speed limits were 60mph or 70mph (depending on whether single or dual carriageways) then perhaps other safety measures might have allowed them to keep traffic moving expeditiously, such as speed cameras, or other methods be used to make crossing by pedestrians safe. However, traffic moving at speed would not allow building right up to the road as we have already seen in Countess Way or installing traffic-lit crossings instead of under- or overpasses on the V10 or V4.

    But now Milton Keynes City Council has launched another irrelevant consultation targeting several more grid roads and other road sections. They have the bit between their teeth now and wish to impose yet more speed restrictions and traffic lights, turning the wonderful, much copied internationally MK grid road system into a mere shadow of its brilliant self.

    MKCC has now unveiled its proposed traffic order for the H5 Portway between V2 Tattenhoe Street and V3 Fulmer Street. The new disablements include yet another unnecessary 40mph speed restriction. It also proposes to slow H7 Chaffron Way at the Phoenix Drive junction at Leadenhall by installing more traffic lights as well as at H9 Groveway at the junction of Simpson Drive.

    Oh… but the vandals have not finished yet… The council also proposes to slow the heartbeat of MK’s traffic by imposing speed limits on Haversham High Street – where a 20mph limit is planned – and on part of Old Wolverton Road where the council wants to reduce the speed limit to 40mph.

    Forgive me if I once more mention Germany – this time one of its most famous philosophers and a major figure in German Idealism: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (born 1770 in Stuttgart, died 1831 in Berlin). It occurs to me that this all rather smacks of his Hegelian Dialectic which explains how, through an apparent search for truth and consensus, the unscrupulous in power can get what they want by frightening the public into demanding change and then offer the solution that they set out to achieve at the very start.

    Reduced to its simplest form the Hegelian Dialectic could be summed up as Problem; Reaction; Solution. The “agent of change” employing the strategy – in this case MKCC – creates the problem or crisis, foments the reaction then attempts to control the outcome by providing the solution.

    This might help to explain how MKCC is destroying every last inch of MK’s free-moving, national speed limit, grid road system but not why. For the answer, we must consider its plan to dump around 63,000 homes here between 2022-2050. This will require building on our grid roads’ wide, green, borders but only if the traffic is slowed from 70mph or 60mph to 40mph, even 20mph, and pedestrians are forced to cross ‘at grade’ risking their and their children’s lives.

    Sadly, by the time you read this any chance to make comments on these schemes will have passed but we know your objections would be ignored anyway, don’t we?

    Cheerio.

  • The real agenda behind City Plan

    The real agenda behind City Plan

    As I write, we are eight weeks into Milton Keynes City Council’s 12-week consultation on the new MK City Plan 2050 which is set to take over from the disappointing Plan:MK.

    Readers of this column can see it here: https://shorturl.at/16H12 – although be warned: “A guided tour for the published online platform will load when you visit the site for the first time. If you’d like to see it again (after the first time) you’ll have to use incognito mode within your web browser as the tour only loads on a first visit.”

    How convenient. The draft plan itself which accompanies the public questionnaire, is in my opinion designed to be such an impossible effort to read and complete with its millions of words, hundreds of questions and links to other supporting documents that hardly anyone will make it to the end.

    However, I am happy to bring you the real agenda which does not require much reading between the lines. For instance, the MKCC draft plan and accompanying questionnaire (which I shall henceforth shorten to MKCC draft) mention its ambition to improve the health of residents by forcing them to walk. It does this so many times within this document that I lost count.

    It looks very much like the council is preparing this as the excuse for every horror it unleashes. “Providing an affordable and accessible way of getting around the city will support people’s wellbeing and ability to lead healthier lifestyles. This includes a focus on integrating new development with high-quality public transport provision with a new Mass Rapid Transit System at its heart and supporting the opportunity for people to be active and walk, cycle or scoot as much as possible in their day-to-day lives.”

    So there is the clue. Once again our council is plodding out its old excuse to destroy the use of personal transport within MK even though our private vehicles are moving inexorably towards pollution-free. What do you think this Mass Transit System will be?

    Monorail? Er, no, an actual free gift of one was rejected decades ago.

    Underground railways? Er, no, far too expensive and clearly far too good for the likes of you.

    Trams? Er, no, they need infrastructure and no one at the council will push for that.

    Buses, perhaps? Yes, you got it in one.

    We will get more horrible, unreliable, stuck-in-traffic, endlessly circuitous buses taking hours out of your life. Meanwhile, you will be prevented from driving anywhere or parking your pollution-free personal transport anywhere either – all because the council requires that land to build 63,000 new homes – over 53% more housing than exists now.

    I asked why we need 63,000 new homes in May’s edition of Business MK, as this is a greater number than the government is calling for. The MKCC draft spills the beans: “Coordinate the phased reduction of ‘front of house’ surface car parking areas along boulevards with introduction of MRT, promotion of green routes for active travel and other pedestrian improvements. Gradual reduction of surface car parking as new development comes forward. Reduce parking requirements in tandem with improved public transport provision. Manage retained parking areas to allow flexible usage to meet different demand profiles.”

    Can you see where our fabulous once-user-friendly city is going?

    The council goes to enormous lengths to repeat the lies it propagated in the early stages of planning for the Western and Eastern expansion areas and even areas east of the V11 Tongwell Street but still west of the M1 – areas that have no redways and no grid roads.

    For instance, it claims to take an “infrastructure first” approach to ensure provision of the necessary health, education and community facilities for residents. It also advocates aligning growth with a new fast city-wide Mass Rapid Transit alongside maintaining the grid roads “as an integral part of the city’s unique design and character”.

    It also pledges to expand the grid roads and redway network into the design and layout of new developments. “Proposed extensions of the Grid Road and Redway network should ensure the grid continues to function effectively and sufficient land/corridors are safeguarded for future Mass Rapid Transit links”

    The grid roads should also include potential for future upgrading to dual carriageways or the MRT system, accommodate public transport and pedestrian crossings above and below ground and include 80 metres of reserve land between roads and residential areas (60 metres for other land uses).

    Sadly, these are all strangers to the truth. They know it. We know it. No new grid roads, redways, overpasses or underpasses as described above will be built in MK. Ever.

    And yet the MKCC draft continues. Its ambition for a population of 410,000 by 2050 remains, to be achieved through “sustainable and transformational growth of the city supported by significant investment in infrastructure”.

    29,000 new homes are already due to come forward by 2050. The MK City Plan 2050 will seek to allocate land for a further 24,000-34,000 new homes including 12,000 in Bletchley and Central Milton Keynes that would, the council says, “support our aims for investment and renewal of Central Bletchley and deliver transformational growth in Central Milton Keynes to make the city centre a more vibrant, exciting and liveable place (my bold italics).”

    I don’t know about them but I get excited when I can park easily and preferably for free.

    Another promise made is this. “Manage the level of parking needed to support a vibrant city centre while maintaining high levels of convenience.” Just how convenient do they think it will be when you can only go to the city centre on a bus?

    You still have a few days left to post your own comments but – and I am really sorry to tell you this – your comments will most likely be ignored.

    God help us all.

    Cheerio.

  • Planning…now things can only get bitter

    Planning…now things can only get bitter

    Readers of this column will be familiar with the issues I have highlighted over the years regarding housebuilding and expansion. These issues include, non-exhaustively, our city council’s abject failure to do that which it always formally and without fail promises to do, utilising those much-loved elements of the original master plan such as proper grid roads; proper redways; pedestrian separation from traffic; housing areas which include shops, dentist and doctors’ surgeries, schools and workplaces keeping MK a polycentric city.

    In addition, it has regularly ignored the bleated pleadings from our previous government, delivered with all the bravado and push of a wet blancmange, for “Infrastructure before Expansion”.

    In recent years we have also seen huge plots of land in our expansion areas be given unnecessary time extensions on their planning permissions while large house developers laugh happily to the bank as their land values soar and the few houses they actually build increase in value due, some say, to additional, deliberate, scarcity.

    Entirely coincidentally, it seems, in the last few years according to very many sources between a fifth and a quarter of Conservative Party funds have come from property developers. Housing Today reported in July 2021 under the headline Anti-corruption charity says scale of donations creates ‘real risk of corruption’ as controversy over planning bill continues.

    It wrote: “Property developers were behind more than one-fifth of donations to the Conservative Party over the past decade, according to anti-corruption campaigners who say the party’s reliance on the industry risks deterring ministers from tackling the housing crisis. Transparency International said that not only did more than 20% of individual donations come from people or organisations with interests in the property sector but that just ten large property sector donations accounted for one-tenth of the party’s income between 2010 and 2020.”

    One rightly wonders if substantial donations to the Labour Party’s coffers are not already under way. Time – and the Electoral Commission which monitors such things – will no doubt tell.

    We have a new government and the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has promised to “get Britain building again” by bringing in compulsory house-building targets and, it seems, preparing to rebrand parts of the Green Belt around London as Grey Belt.
    She said that she would overhaul restrictions and make the “tough and hard choices” necessary. But is simply claiming to force the big housebuilders to actually build homes rather than sitting on their hands and land-banking going to happen and is it going to help MK? Many think not. Building new homes also featured prominently in the King’s Speech to Parliament last month.

    One may well ask why we need to build so many new homes, anyway. Some claim that immigration has added to this need; others that as Britons can no longer permanently dwell easily in Europe since Brexit, fewer are retiring there and reducing UK population numbers. One thing is certain; families are smaller than they have ever been, many encouraged to only have two children by government family benefit restrictions for those who dare to have more, so it’s not that.

    I sought help from a few sources. In February 2017, the government produced and presented to Parliament a White Paper entitled Fixing our broken housing market. Then-Prime Minister Theresa May, in her foreword, said: “Our broken housing market is one of the greatest barriers to progress in Britain today. Whether buying or renting, the fact is that housing is increasingly unaffordable – particularly for ordinary working-class people who are struggling to get by.

    Today the average house costs almost eight times average earnings – an all-time record. As a result, it is difficult to get on the housing ladder and the proportion of people living in the private rented sector has doubled since 2000.

    These high housing costs hurt ordinary working people the most. In total more than 2.2 million working households with below-average incomes spend a third or more of their disposable income on housing. This means they have less money to spend on other things every month, and are unable to put anything aside to get together the sums needed for a deposit.

    Those who own their own home are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the mortgage and struggle to save for later life. And many worry about the ability of their children and grandchildren to afford their own home and to have access to the same chances in life that they have enjoyed.”

    The UK has built on average 160,000 new homes a year since the 1970s, the paper continued. The consensus is that the UK needs between 225,000 and 275,000 a year to keep pace with population growth. Only 11% of land in England has been built on.

    The White Paper said the problem was due to councils not planning for the homes they need, house building at too slow a rate and a construction industry reliant on a small number of big firms.

    As a result the ratio of average house prices to average earnings has more than doubled since 1998 and that means having a safe, secure home to call your own is an increasingly distant dream.

    The White Paper also added that houses were earning more than the people living in them. In 2015, the average home in the South East increased in value by £29,000, while average annual pay in the region was £24,542. The average London home made its owner more than £22 an hour – considerably above the average Londoner’s hourly rate.

    Local authorities should not put up with applicants who secure planning permission but do not use it. “They will have nowhere to hide from this government if they fail to plan and deliver the homes this country needs,” the White Paper declared.

    That did not happen, did it? No wonder the housebuilders are happily land-banking.

    The White Paper also endorsed how conscientiously and importantly the government regarded public engagement in the plans considered by local authorities, none of which were delivered. Why do we always hear both national and local government of every political persuasion making these rose-tinted promises and ignoring them resolutely wherever the rubber hits the road?

    In September 2023 the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence published a research document Why have the volume housebuilders been so profitable?, full of the most well-researched statistics, including detailed analysis of the finances of Britain’s house builders. Here’s a quote in the report by Pete Redfern, then chief executive of Taylor Wimpey in May 2016 which backs up my points above: “As the big three repeatedly remind shareholders and analysts in their earnings calls, land is foundational to this business model: buying land at the right price, in the right places, at the right time and gaining planning permission, is fundamental to the profitability of these housebuilders. Indeed, these volume housebuilders see themselves, partly if not largely, as land investment businesses. We said that we weren’t just a house builder, we were a land portfolio company… We still believe that today.”

    The report adds that while purchasing short-term land is important to volume housebuilders’ business models, gaining control of development land earlier in the process is fundamental. As soon as a piece of land is granted planning permission for residential development, its value can increase dramatically. The report says. For example, planning permission for residential use may increase the value of a site from around £20,000 per hectare for agricultural use to more than £5 million per hectare in areas with high house prices (MHCLG, 2018). By bringing strategic land through the planning system, whether by outright purchase of the freehold or via an option agreement subject to the granting of outline planning permission, housebuilders can capture a greater proportion of this value uplift (although they would capture less by way of option agreement).

    So where does that leave Milton Keynes? Sadly, at the mercy of those banking land, at the mercy of a new government with all the usual ‘must say’ promises of those in power and subject to the blatant unwillingness of Milton Keynes City Council to force developers to stick to the principles of the original Master Plan, most of which it still largely espouses.
    I have no doubt that we shall see all our new developments and expansion areas become islands of poor, cramped, right-up-to-the-road housing with poor, narrow streets with little or no parking, a great lack of shops, schools, dentist and doctor surgeries, a lack of workplaces, and most importantly, perhaps, a lack of hope.

    We shall see new homes, yes, but ones that will never be a ‘home for life’. Meanwhile may I humbly suggest a new logo for this government in anticipation: “Things can only get bitter!”

    Not a typo.

    Cheerio.