Interview with Steve Wehrle

Steve comments that Milton Keynes was the ideal stepping stone for him in his career as a surveyor, between public and private sectors. Appointed in the early 1980s as ‘something like Assistant Commercial Director Commerce (ACDC!)’, he worked on lettings for the Shopping Building and on development of the Point. Steve remembers that: ‘retailers didn’t see Milton Keynes as a population that needed serving, but as CMK developed, it acquired some status’. In his opinion, the design of the of the Food Centre was unlikely to be successful, forcing people to walk round 3 sides of the square between Waitrose and Sainsbury’s. His current clients (owners of the Food Centre) would like to knock it down’. He also recalls the difficult negotiations MKDC had with Tesco about sites. The Point was Steve’s major project. He recalls: ‘Bass Leisure were willing to do all of the entertainment complex, but not the Cinema; MKDC had insisted that cinema must be part of it ‘…but nobody wanted to know’. Then a surprise visit from Scott Wallace, who worked for AMC (American Multi Cinema) and had read an article about the project, led to The Point including the very first Multi Cinema in Europe. Steve says: ‘ this was like manna from heaven for me’. He recalls meeting Scott on the opening night, and Scott saying: ‘Steve, this is it… this is the re-birth of British Cinema and we were there’. Steve goes into detail about the difficult negotiations during the development of the Point and its unusual design. Looking back, he says: ‘The Point … was a seminal moment in my career’.
Steve says: ‘I think the Shopping Building has survived the test of time better than nearly every other Shopping Building I know’, but he considers that it will need development to prevent future failure. In CMK now, he considers development of the site of the Point, the Food Centre and the blocklet between them, will be crucial if MK grows to 400, 000. When offered the opportunity to work with one of Britain’s biggest surveying consultancy practices, working on building Shopping Centres across Europe, he could not turn it down and he left MKDC after four years.