Interview with Will Cousins

Will Cousins talks about the new ideas on housing planning developing at MKDC in the early 1980s. This era was a turning point in MK, moving away from social housing toward relying more on private developers to provide housing, while still including some social housing. In the West of MK, grids were being formed of smaller housing schemes (no more than 100 houses), procured from private developers, together with some Shared Ownership schemes. Architects needed a Plan for a grid square in which to place those schemes and this was Will’s role. The Private Housing Unit sold the briefs and plots of land that Will laid out in a Plan.

Stroud Watson, of MK’s new Urban Design Unit (UDU) was, in Will’s opinion, a great advocate for embracing the new ideas to allow the City to continue successfully. He produced the: ‘City Structure Review’, stating that some aspects of the MK Master Plan needed to be reconsidered and setting out six principles for future city design. Fred Roche and EMC were not keen on some aspects of his ideas but endorsed the new style of planning to deliver the city objectives. Will and his team were able to apply the principles quickly in their work on Great Holm, Loughton and Shenley grid squares. On Great Holm (from 1982 to 1986), Will recalls the role of the planners as effective Design Coordinators for the project, monitoring the design quality of individual house builders. Will mentions discussions on whether local centres should be on a grid road, or in the centre of the grid (as for Great Holm); and also the importance of incorporating landscape within the body of a project. The same planning methods continued at MKDC until 1992, and then at the Commission for New Towns, English Partnership, Hunter Quiney Agencies and the Milton Keynes Partnership, with the equivalent of design coordinator staff there. Some staff from MKDC Corporation continued to be employed in teams, like Sarah Whittaker, so there was consistency: in Will’s opinion this is an important point about city growth and the resources they can call upon. Will discusses Energy Park 1986, in Knowlhill and Shenley Lodge; a ‘total project’, embodying ideas about routes, connectivity and movement. It also took a particular point of view about solar orientation and the prevailing wind. The Energy Cost Index was created, and initial ideas developed on measuring energy efficiency.