Interview with Peter Martin

Peter was interviewed informally (mostly in the White Horse in Stony Stratford) in 1974 by Nigel Lane, MKDC’s lead architect for Northern Towns; he started work in the Northern Towns team in December 1974. A house was allocated two weeks later. Don Ritson later invited him and his wife to become residents of the Solar House in Harrowden, Bradville, due to open at Easter 1975. Peter recounts tales of living in this experimental house ‘on show’ to public coach tours arranged by MKDC. There was plenty of interest in this ‘good news story’; he explains some technical details and remembers being interviewed by Jan Leeming on Pebble Mill at 1:00, and on the Today programme. But house tours for MKDC’s guests were intrusive and he says: ‘we got out of there as soon as we could sort out buying something’. In 1997 they moved to Calverton, to a house needing complete renovation that kept them fully occupied.

Results from the solar house led to an increase in insulation requirements in building regulations, and two more solar-heated projects were built by MKDC in Great Linford, and Pennyland 1. But after that, MKDCs interest in energy-saving lapsed. Peter believes energy-efficient housing should be of more interest to buyers today, with high energy prices, but the costs of solar panels on every house is too high for developers to commit to it. MKDC’s architects had other priorities then. Asked what he is most proud of about MK, Peter says: ‘Being part of building a city which we can now officially call a city’. He admits that over the last 20 years, since he left MK, he has became disillusioned with working with housebuilders and contrasts it with ‘the fairly joyful experience of working with MKDC… in integrated professional teams’ He is proud of MK, overall, saying: ‘It’s the whole fact that we built a city that people want to live in by choice. I think it’s quite an achievement’.