Roadshows across the UK championed the new city as a place to live, work and to relocate a business. Welcome packs were given to families and employees as they arrived. That does not happen any more, says former commercial director of the development corporation Bob Hill. He tells ANDREW GIBBS that Milton Keynes today is missing one key ingredient.


Let’s strengthen our sense of community


Bob Hill


A CHANGE of expression crosses his face as we move from talk of sport, stadia and the Commonwealth Games to more serious matters. “We have the opportunity to help the city mature in a much more community-focused way,” he says. I am sitting with Bob Hill, former commercial


‘I remember Lord Campbell saying that we will know when we have succeeded when the people of Milton Keynes turn up and populate the institutions of Milton Keynes and embrace the passion.’


HE ACHIEVED plenty during his time as commercial director but Bob Hill loses little sleep over some projects that never saw the light of day. Entrepreneur Richard Branson had plans to build a new theatre and more retail in the city centre and an outline deal was in place. “That fell through but what we have now is so much better,” says Bob. “We always had aspirations


to have a stadium here but had we moved Luton Town FC into the stadium we had planned, we would have a much lesser stadium than the one we have now. It is almost as though everything has its time.” Bob was in charge of commercial leisure development in the late 1970s,


14 Business


director of Milton Keynes Development Corporation, as he reflects on the importance of community spirit to the development of Milton Keynes and his fears that it may be on the wane. He and his team were key to bringing some of the leading employers in the UK to Milton Keynes in the 1980s, including Volkswagen Audi Group and Abbey National. The names have changed but their importance to the city remains. Their arrival and that of others was the result of a


highly successful marketing campaign focusing on the community and lifestyle benefits and opportunities awaiting families and companies in North Buckinghamshire. “The most important thing is to be out there in the wider market trying to persuade people to visit,” Bob says.


The campaign was aimed at companies with Milton


Keynes on their radar. “They would want to move their staff with them and they needed to be confident that their staff were not going to be resistant, that they would see it as a benefit.” During the discussions with Volkswagen Audi


Group, which was considering moving its headquarters and warehouse to Milton Keynes, Bob and his team took a roadshow to VAG’s locations in Kent, Surrey, Scotland and Yorkshire to present Milton


Keynes to VAG staff. “In those days, the corporation was in control of housing, supply facilities, shops, sports and community facilities. We had a team of people producing welcome packs for people when they arrived because we were aiming to create communities,” he says. “We would walk people through everything.That does not happen any more. You turn up here now and you don’t know the grid road system, what H and V stands for on the grid roads.”


He joined the corporation in 1972 as a junior


surveyor and, as chief marketing officer, was in Japan in 1983 when a call came from general manager Frank Henshaw. “My predecessor Allen Duff had resigned and he asked whether I wanted the job. I could not have wanted anything more.”


He took the post at a time of local and national


change. The government of Margaret Thatcher, elected in 1979, was stressing the importance of the private sector in moving the country forward. “There was a change of government and a change


of scope,” says Bob. “We started to have the private sector fund the industrial, commercial and housing developments and we kept an interest. “Take the shopping building. There is no way the private sector would have built what we built or funded it. The corporation built the shopping centre with public and private sector money. It was a halfway house. We sold our share in the shopping centre and made a massive return for the government." Mrs Thatcher officially opened the Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre (now thecentre:mk) u


‘We were not looking for a football club, we were looking for a stadium’


bringing the facilities befitting a young and vibrant city centre. “We were also bidding to host the Commonwealth Games and as part of the bid we were aiming to have a stadium built that would last long after the Games and an athletes’ village which after the Games would become housing. “We were in dialogue with


football clubs who had expressed to us their wish to move to Milton Keynes. Let’s be clear: we were not going to football clubs trying to coax


them from their communities. Luton Town wanted to move because they could not get any help from their council. “We were not looking for a


football club, we were looking for a stadium. The Commonwealth Games was a possibility and I went to the States to talk to stadium operators that we had targeted and that had shown an interest in operating a stadium in Milton Keynes. They thought it would be an ideal place to put a US-style


stadium but nothing came of it in the end. “Then the English Hockey


Association got in touch about the possibility of moving English hockey to Milton Keynes. We put together a deal which enabled a very modest stadium to be built off the back of the commercial development that surrounded it.” The English Hockey Association took over the National Hockey Stadium at Elder Gate but suspended operations in 2002 due to u


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