Interview with John Napleton (part 1)

In 1974 John applied and was offered the post of Chief Engineer: Roads for MKDC; he says, ‘…I was incredibly enthusiastic’. Traffic was added to the role; he held a relevant Traffic Diploma, and accepted. Initial tasks included: setting new design standards for grid roads; road testing junctions in Central Milton Keynes (CMK), to ensure that long vehicles could go round the corners; and developing the system of redways for MK (with Don Perkins). John notes that crossroads in the Master Plan were initially to be traffic-light controlled. He was Chief Engineer: Roads & Traffic for 4 years. In 1978, Fred Roche asked John to join staff going out to Nigeria to assist with appointment of consultants to develop the new capital city of Abuja. John spent several years in the team of 8 MKDC staff working on detailed plans. On return from Nigeria to MKDC he agreed to redundancy, but almost simultaneously, MKDC advertised for a Property Management Director. He says: ‘an incredible job – shopping building, estate management, public housing, parks and open spaces, the arts…’ He was delighted to be appointed in March 1983. He describes some problems he dealt with: external doors for the shopping building; filling 1,000 empty rental houses; preparing a proposal to the Board for pitched roofs on all flat-roof housing. In his opinion, the early homes due for regeneration should not be demolished: they were roomy, built to Parker Morris standards, and in good open space.
In John’s opinion, his biggest achievement was getting approval of the creation of the Parks Trust through the MKDC Board, working with Brian Salter. He describes the process. Hr admires the ‘magnificence of Neil Higson’s landscape planting’, after 30 years. Finally, he says: ‘coming to MK was the biggest gamble I made…I loved working for MKDC; …I’m very sad when I see that the standards which MKDC set have basically been ignored by people who followed us’. From 1992 to 1998 John worked for Commission for the New Towns (CNT). After retirement, he took consultant roles in the development of MK Theatre, the redevelopment of the Stables at Wavendon and in the formation of Bletchley Park Trust.