Interview with John Wardley part 1

In early 1969 John applied for a job with MKDC, and was interviewed by Ernie Pye and David Jamieson. An early job was to install 14 signs: ‘You are now entering the designated area of Milton Keynes’ at MK entry points; John recalls a small battle with David Jamieson over budgets. John had negotiated additional signs with the manufacturer: beneficial, since 5 of the signs were dug up immediately by farmers! John notes there was a lot of opposition to Milton Keynes in the early days from Councils and local people; his first significant role was working with consultants Peat, Marwick & Kates (PMK) to draw up the overall transportation plan for MK, completed in 1970; different traffic models of grid road structures and traffic loading were tested using a program on an Atlas computer. Similarly, a plan was produced for public transport, using a program called TransitNet. John recalls a trip to Holland to inspect a Dial-a-bus system, adopted in the early days of MK. He describes discussions about speed limits, the distinction between ‘principal’ and ‘super-principal’ roads, and grid road reservations. He talks of the choice of roundabouts over traffic lights.

John recalls his early days on road design as exciting: the design of V7 Saxon Street from Queensway, Bletchley to the A5, then the design of H9 Groveway, crossing the canal and river at the time of the Open University’s purchase of Walton Hall. He describes the management of a traffic survey, to justify to the Department of Transport (DoT) the construction of the A5 diversion (A5D). The results led to the DoT agreeing to pay 100% of the northern and southern sections, MKDC and the County Council covering the central. The extensive use of a purchased highway design computer program, operated for MKDC at Cranfield, justified acquisition of the Burroughs computer for MKDC. Asked what he is most proud of in MK, he says: ‘I think it’s a wonderful, wonderful place and whatever criticism there’s been recently… about MK, it’s lovely to see all these people, you know, enjoying it. I love people to criticise things… On roundabouts, I say, ‘you can blame me for that’.