There’s a joke that sums up the reputation that Britain’s largest new town has long been trying to shake. Q. What’s the difference between Milton Keynes and a yoghurt? A. A yoghurt has culture. Repeat this to someone from MK, as its busier residents like to refer to it, and they will tell you at some length why it’s wrong.
Mean-spirited commentators spent so long treating Milton Keynes as a punchline, in fact, that many of them seem to have missed the fact the place has been a huge success. It passed its population target of 250,000, set when first designated as one of the third and final wave of new towns back in 1967, around a decade back, and is now bigger than Norwich or Aberdeen. And despite the shameless pledge of its former Tory MP to protect its non-existent green belt, it’s still building. It’s also one of the few cities – a status it was officially awarded back in 2022 – to combine both high wages and relatively affordable family housing. That is probably not a coincidence.
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