Interview with Michael Murray (part 1)

Michael thought the job of Chief Executive of MK Borough Council (MKBC) would be a challenge: ‘…something I really wanted’. His predecessor Errol Ray had united five rural district councils into one Borough Council. Michael describes the role of MKBC in 1984 and comments on the Council members, whom he says were: ‘Highly political, very well informed’; however, he was concerned about a lack of long-term vision and reluctance to do economic development, working with the business community. He talks of the attitudes of different parties in the hung council, and their attitudes to the Development Corporation (MKDC). Michael held the post from 1984 to 1996: in 1990 it was announced that MKDC would close in 1992, and in 1991, came Michael Heseltine’s proposal to create unitary authorities. Also the government reduced MK’s target population to 200,000. The Council gradually realised during 1984 to 1990 that they should develop a long-term vision and associated policies. Strategies they put in place to look to the future included: bringing in new staff; echoing MKDC’s community development work; and the introduction in 1990 of a public consultation on the future of the city – ‘2020 Vision’. He describes the ‘show put together by Roger Kitchen …how the city might work … blue sky thinking’. Michael comments that ‘2020 Vision’ sent messages to the community that there would be life after MKDC, and says that public transport was the problem that stood out in any consultation or survey. He comments on differences between the MK Master Plan and the actual situation, on public transport.

The Council considered challenging government on the wind-up date for MKDC; it chose not to, but the Secretary of State agreed with their submission that MK was ‘defective in its social and cultural facilities’, so the Theatre & Gallery were provided for after closure, all government-funded, either by the Arts Council or the Development Corporation/CNT. Michael comments on MKDC’s transfer of all housing stock to the Council in 1984. In 1992 when tenants were asked which landlord they would prefer after MKDC, the Council ‘won on a kind of landslide’. Finally, Michael comments on their identification of areas of social deprivation, working with the health authority.