Urban Eden

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  • The ticking time bomb facing retail

    The ticking time bomb facing retail

    Well, it seems that we’ve all survived the chilling horrors of January and now must face those of February before we can even begin to think of Spring. Personally, I can’t wait for that northern hemisphere warming to kick in. However, in the meantime I have been looking at how recent trends in retail in MK and elsewhere are not only continuing but moving faster and faster.

    Retail locations are generally considered to be in one of four groups. We have, in recent years, seen how Quaternary (4th tier) and Tertiary (3rd tier) locations have effectively completely died. Even charity shops are turning their noses up at free-rent locations where shoppers rarely go.

    Now, it seems, even formerly very successful Secondary (2nd tier) retail locations are finished, too. Take Bletchley, for example.
    Once Bletchley was one of Milton Keynes’ most successful retail locations with, over different periods, a thriving market, a large Sainsbury’s, a large Boots, a Co-Op department store over several floors, a W.H. Smiths, a Wilko’s and not one but two Poundlands – all now gone. More recently the main street, Queensway, has lost both its Barclays and its Lloyds banks and is home to mostly charity shops, nailbars, coffee bars and eateries selling things you mostly cannot get online. There is, however, still a busy Home Bargains, a Peacocks, and two successful butchers’ shops – Palmer’s and Meatworld – which are not only surviving but, in one case, expanding into otherwise emptying premises. Well done to them.

    Bletchley’s flagship retail destination was, since its construction by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation in the 1970s, the Brunel Centre; a decent-sized purpose-built shopping centre. In recent years it has become more and more empty. The latest bad news for local shoppers is that both Farm Foods and Select Clothing are quitting.

    The Brunel Centre is owned by the council’s wholly owned Milton Keynes Development Partnership which also owns the former Wilkinson’s site. The council also, separately, owns the former Sainsbury’s site and its car park. The council’s plan is to say goodbye to the last of the retail in Brunel Centre, including a Boots opticians, a Holland & Barrett, a Savers health, home and beauty store, a Card Factory, a Cex tech-swap store and a F. Hinds jewellery store and to redevelop the entire Brunel/Sainsbury’s/Wilkinson’s/Car park site as a high-density, high-rise housing development with hundreds of homes.

    It is likely many will be used by commuters on the soon-to-be newly reestablished East West Rail between Oxford and Cambridge with its MK hub station in Bletchley.

    However, we must ask ourselves whether we really want to see the end of every retail outlet that sells things that we might or could buy online, mostly at cheaper prices. Of course, it costs significantly more to run a store with all its rates, staffing, administration, heating, goods-stocking and security costs than a gigantic warehouse in the middle of nowhere mostly run by robots. This is an inevitability, I’m afraid, and one whose pace is accelerating more rapidly than anyone could have recently predicted.

    Looking still further ahead, how long is it before Primary (1st tier) retail sites such as thecentre:mk and Midsummer Place are forced to convert every last shop to an eatery or bowling alley?

    Cinema, of course, is also dead and no longer a reasonable option for the remaining giants of retail despite their ever-hopeful and oft-expressed wishes to use cinema to save their centres. Who needs to go to a cinema to see a film when the auditorium is full of noisy people using their phones (which even on silent give off a bright glow), chattering loudly and eating noisy sweets when you can buy a 75-inch TV for less than a grand, download films very soon after release, pause them to get a drink or to go to the loo, add subtitles if those Brooklyn accents are too hard to comprehend and rewind or fast forward at will? It really is no contest, is it?

    Yes, an epic blockbuster on i-Max, particularly one in 3D, is still truly amazing. But my vote and the votes of many I know are now firmly going for home-viewing.

    So, there we have it; the death of Quaternary, Tertiary and now even Secondary retail is assured. More and more shops will become homes, and the world will never be the same again, but at least it’s going to be getting warmer.

    Cheerio.

    P.S. Before anyone writes in, I acknowledge that Stony Stratford
    is a special case. The town appears to be bucking the trends somewhat and is largely defying the inevitable, although not entirely comprehensively. I might be tempted to write about Stony in a forthcoming column.

  • How it all started

    How it all started

    A blast from the past and a starring role for Theo, our Chair. This was published in October 2008.

    Urban Eden is a group dedicated to promoting continued sustainable urban development in the new city of Milton Keynes in the face of decisions being taken by an enelected minority determined to ignore the wishes of those who live and work there. This video is designed to spread the word and support the group’s aims.

    Our Urban Eden – YouTube

  • A proper mass transit system for the city…bring it on, please

    A proper mass transit system for the city…bring it on, please

    Happy new year… and let us hope that 2025 brings clear thinking to Milton Keynes City Council’s expansion policies for MK. I am not holding my breath, however.

    In October’s column, I discussed the council’s 12-week consultation on the new MK City Plan 2050, set to take over from the disappointing Plan:MK. I opined on MKCC’s apparent new obsession; simply to save money on providing land for parking spaces, grid roads and redways in all new developments by forcing residents to walk everywhere.

    This, it was claimed, is nothing to do with dense infill and a grotesque unwillingness to provide those proper parking spaces, grid roads and redways that we all love but to provide a new transport system to improve the health of MK residents.

    “If everyone in MK did an extra ten minutes of walking each day over ten years, it could save the NHS £35million.”

    I am surprised that new houses in MK are allowed to have heating systems and residents are not forced to go and chop down trees to burn in order to exercise.

    But the council did not stop there. It promised to “focus on integrating new development with high-quality public transport provision, with a new Mass Rapid Transit System at its heart”.

    I did not believe this for one minute.

    “What do you think this so-called Mass Transit System will be? Monorail?,” I wrote. “Er, no. An actual free gift of one was rejected tens of years ago.

    “Underground railways? Er, no. Far too expensive and clearly far-too good for the likes of us.

    “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 our lives.”

    And I was right, despite what the council and others are claiming. The Citizen newspaper has recently reported that “More than 50 years after the idea was first suggested, a tram system is finally on the cards for Milton Keynes”.

    Except it is not. It is a series of new buses, exactly as I predicted.

    As I write, the council is soliciting responses from residents through Commonplace Digital Ltd, a private company based in Manchester which claims to “connect you to the people who create the places where you live, work and play. A platform to speak and be heard by developers, councils, and public bodies to initiate better decisions and places for all.”

    It ran an online survey for four weeks. It ended on December 20 so, sadly, it will be over by the time you read this.

    “We are seeking your feedback on how you travel and why you make the travel choices that you do for a range of different journeys. This is for our transport plan, which is called the LTP (Local Transport Plan) and this will be the fifth one the council has produced. It sets out our transport policies about buses, walking, cycling, scooting and driving for the next few years, and must respond to our climate and health challenges while at the same time supporting the growth of the city.”

    They add: “Although we have not yet confirmed the fleet itself, we have started engaging with providers to identify a fleet that would provide the look and feel of a tram.”.

    Surely the “look and feel of a tram” is something that runs on dedicated rails, that cannot simply disappear to do other things in other places like buses do and is not a glorified, misnamed bus.

    When I took part in the survey, not all the buttons worked and I could only make comments rather than respond to some of the choices.

    They asked questions about how I travelled in MK right now. One of the suggested options to select was ‘Tube’. Great job, Commonplace Digital Ltd.

    I filled in the comment box asking them where are the Tube lines in MK as I appear to have completely missed them.

    Almost unbelievably, they also claimed as one of their achievable goals “Reduced Journey Times: Faster, more efficient routes across Milton Keynes – up to one-third or up to 15 minutes faster than today’s equivalent bus journey for a typical journey from suburb to centre.”.

    Really, despite not having identified the vehicles, they have got a bus that goes magically faster than a bus. If any time savings can be made with buses, make them on MK’s current buses.

    Meanwhile why, oh why, can we not have houses with sufficient parking spaces (where people can plug in their zero pollution electric cars), redways for cyclists and pedestrians, grid roads with not ‘at-grade’ crossings, no unnecessary traffic lights and please, please, please a proper mass transit system?

    Is MKCC deliberately trying to destroy this wonder, this zenith, this pinnacle of post-war town planning?

    The population of the city of Milton Keynes is due to rise from about 265,000 to well over 410,000 by 2050. The city of Lille in France had a population of 236,234 in 2020 and has a Metro (underground transport) network of 45km with 60 stations. Lille also has a public tram system with 36 stations.

    So how, I ask, is it possible for a little French city like Lille – and it is not alone in this – to have both a large underground railway system and a large tram system.

    The question is this: When is a bus a tram? And I think I have the answer. It is as soon as my car is a helicopter travelling inside Milton Keynes’ famous underground transport network…

    Until then, it is a bus. Happy tramming until then, one and all.

    Cheerio.

  • 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.