Interview with John Walker part 2

Part 2 of John’s interview begins with the subject of rental housing. John describes MKDC’s introduction of Shared Ownership housing (not yet delivered in the UK at large scale) when the Thatcher government ended the social housing programme. About 35% of their annual housing became Shared Ownership, with MKDC setting up Milton Keynes Housing Association. Using their in-house architects, they built more Shared Ownership than had ever been built anywhere in the UK. He explains the ‘nomination rights’ process, allowing new MK company employees to receive social housing. He then describes the transfer of their rental and shared ownership housing to the Council or other Housing Associations at the end of the 1980s.

When Planning Director and Deputy General Manager of MKDC, John notes: ‘we had to position the Corporation in the right way …I think a lot of it was a question of orientation’. He notes that some of the groundwork was done in the 1970s, anticipating the potential effect of a Thatcher government, so they were well prepared, but they had to modify their plans ‘… using the language of ‘facilitating Private Sector Investment’ rather than ‘building the City ourselves’. John comments: ‘We could be quite clear [to house builders] about standards and requirements to have architect-designed houses, not normal housing stock’. He describes how they managed developers of private housing and talks of ‘development gain deals, requiring developers also to build non-commercial facilities, e.g. the ice rink was financed by the developers of retail businesses near the station; other such packages funded The Church of Christ the Cornerstone & the Hockey Stadium. He comments: ‘MKDC… had a real passion to deliver a City …not just a physical thing but a social and economic thing as well’. John considers that office development has always been the most difficult task in CMK. In the early 1980s there was plenty of land, ‘fantastic shopping …but no nightlife, no culture’. He comments that the arrival of the station in 1982 helped a lot, and acknowledges that MKDC’s Commercial Department did incredibly well. But he points out: ‘At the end of the eighties the economic cycle went into a deep …recession in commercial development’, and notes that after English Partnerships took over in MK, the next burst of business activity was in 2003-2008. He says: ‘So, it’s come in two main phases really and the eighties was the biggest phase’.