‘Brilliant men for their time... they enabled the likes of me to get on with our job.’
Clockwise from top left:
Lord Campbell of Eskam; Fred Lloyd Roche; Lord Chilver; Frank Henshaw.
Milton Keynes was enormous,” he says. The latter brought almost 4,000 staff to the city centre and to Shenley Wood.
He speaks of his pride in The Parks Trust,
created to look after the city’s green space after the corporation’s demise in 1992 and of the opening of The Point, the first multi-screen cinema complex in the UK. “It came into the middle of Milton Keynes at a time when there was nothing much to do there and completely changed the centre.” He remembers in glowing terms those who led
u in 1979, describing it as “an important milestone” in the city’s development. “It is to the great credit of the Development Corporation that it has been able to attract to Milton Keynes so many people, so many firms, and so much investment,” she said in her speech. In 1992, before the corporation was wound up,
Mrs Thatcher returned to Milton Keynes to open the Central Business Exchange. “At a behind- closed-doors lunch for the city’s business leaders, she extolled the success of the development corporation because we had embraced the private sector and had done it in an imaginative way,” Bob recalls. “We built hundreds of factory units across the city with private money, sold it on and made a buck. That could never be replicated now. The political dogma of today would never allow what was allowed in the 1970s and 1980s. This was through Margaret Thatcher’s government and she took a very pragmatic line so long as we were engaging with the private sector.” Bob holds several highlights of his time leading
the development of Milton Keynes. “Sealing the deal with VAG and doing the deal with Abbey National which in terms of job generation in
u financial problems. It was replaced by England Hockey in 2003.
The site remained unused
but, during his time as managing director of the British Rail Property Board, Bob had heard of plans by Network Rail, which owns and manages the UK’s railway infrastructure, to move its national headquarters. He set the wheels in motion with an introduction to the development corporation’s successor English Partnerships. It was a perfect fit, he says. “Network Rail was a
marvellous opportunity to bring in 3,000-4,000 jobs and put them in a location where you could rationalise the generation of business and the removal of the hockey stadium. “The Dons had gone to MK1,
England Hockey did not want it any more so it was an unused facility.
“Had English Partnerships proposed merely knocking it
down there would have been hell to pay but they were going to bring in thousands of jobs so it was OK and created comparatively little fuss.
Network Rail’s national centre The Quadrant, built on the site of the National Hockey Stadium. ‘It had been a long time since we had seen any cranes in the city centre.’
the development of the new city. “For the first half of the corporation’s life we had Lord Campbell and Fred Lloyd Roche, a brilliant chairman and chief executive for their time. Then came chairman Lord Chilver and general manager Frank Henshaw who were brilliant too, for a different era. They enabled the likes of me to get on with our job.” Days after the development corporation was
wound up, Bob became managing director of the British Rail Property Board. But the political pressure intensified and Bob left in 1998 to set up a property consultancy. He is winding it down but still works for the independent charity Historic Royal Palaces which manages unoccupied Royal buildings such as the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kew Palace and Hillsborough in Northern Ireland. “When I set up, they asked me to lend a hand
for six months. 18 years later I’m still doing one day a week.” In 2013, approached by chairman John Duggan, Bob agreed to join the board of Milton Keynes Development Partnership, the council subsidiary charged with disposing of the land assets purchased from the Homes & Communities Agency. Independent members sit alongside council representatives on its board.
‘The political dogma of today would never allow what was allowed in the 1970s and 1980s. Margaret Thatcher’s government took a very pragmatic line so long as we were engaging with the private sector.’
Bob remains a passionate champion of Milton
Keynes. “The corporation had to make a lot of compromises in its time but we did not compromise on issues such as local plans and the grid roads. We made mistakes, yes, but we achieved plenty. Some of it was great, some of it was good and some of it was not so good but we moved forward. We cared about communities because what we were creating was communities.” “If you came to Milton Keynes in 1985, we had
a stronger sense of community. 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. We are not there yet but it is getting closer.”
“Network Rail was key after
ten years of virtually nothing happening. It had been a long time since we had seen any cranes in the city centre.”
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