Cllr David Hopkins, Leader of the Conservative Group at Milton Keynes City Council, is asking a meeting of Full Council to support his motion that directs the council, the leader, and the Cabinet to support the proposal that Takes Back Control of Future MK, giving local residents and local communities far more of say and sway over Strategic Planning in directing what planning goes where and when. This would reduce the ongoing impacts of planning on those residents living in and around MK today as well as reasserting the mantra I before E, a planning theme Cllr Hopkins first placed before MK Council over 20 years ago and which has been frequently quoted ever since.
Cllr Hopkins (who placed the motion on to the Agenda for Full Council back in November 2022) notes that since then Sir Kier Starmer has adopted a remarkably familiar Taking Back Control theme to his Labour Party Policy Making and as such I am hopeful that the whole council will get behind this sensible, deliverable and much overdue approach to the forward planning in our city.
Cllr Hopkins comments, ‘It is surely simple common sense that MK residents, local community representatives and Milton Keynes based businesses are consulted and considered first and foremost when designating future housing and employment growth sites and that environmental and community wellbeing aspects are the primary consideration in identifying such developments. In particular, the infrastructure (in particular the Highways Infrastructure) is creaking badly, and a genuine and detailed study needs to be undertaken now, across the whole city area, to assess how much more capacity these essentially former country roads can bare.
For far too long vested interests and a weak and ineffective Planning Inspectorate has been imposing levels of housing and growth inappropriate for a city service infrastructure originally designed to cater for a population of no more than 250,000*
I look forward to receiving the unanimous support of councillors for a motion that places Milton Keynes First in taking back control of the future design and expansion of MK from now to 2050’.
