Interview with John Walker, part 1

On joining the Planning Dept. of MKDC in March 1975, John Walker’s first task in Policy Research and Development was Household Surveys: calculating how many jobs needed to be created to match the increase in population. He describes MKDC as a ‘can do’ place. Between 1975 and 1980 he moved up the management ladder, and became Planning Director in 1980, aged 31, when Lee Shostak left. He comments: ‘… it was fantastic’. He considered that staff at the Corporation were privileged, with the opportunity to use the powers granted to MKDC to do: ‘the most exciting piece of urban development in the UK’. He talks of the strategies adopted to attract businesses, recalling successes with Japanese and US companies. Looking back, John comments that two things they could have done better were: dealing with public transport problems and moving more quickly towards private housing. John discusses his time as Planning Director; he also picked up responsibility for Transport and Media Relations later, working closely with Bob Hill. In 1987 John recalls Minister Patrick Jenkin making the shock announcement that MKDC would close in 1992. He says: ‘We had to start doing an awful lot of things to try and keep the train moving at the same speed until it hit the buffers’: more reorganisation, and services moved into new private firms.

John became Deputy General Manager, also covering Personnel and Social Developments in the last few years to 1992. He praises Frank Henshaw for some extremely skilled steering and management during this period, saying: ‘he was …the perfect man for the era, in my opinion’ with a great ability to ‘ward off the Civil Servants’. John quotes a detailed example of pressure to dispose of land to volume house builders in large chunks, which MKDC were able to resist. He found Frank’s style of management supportive and ‘very liberating’. John comments on the contrasting styles of the two Board Chairmen and their relationships with the government. Finally, he discusses approval from Government to construct the whole grid system before closure of MKDC, saying: ‘I am sure Frank was very forceful in his arguments about that’. He recalls their presentations to Civil Servants about time to complete MK after 1992, and their strategies for privatisation of services & disposal of assets.