Milton Keynes

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Summary <p dir="ltr">It's built for cars. The buses are baffling. But it's got the most energy efficient housing in Britain. What did it take to build a city from almost nothing? And a university where there are no students on campus? </p> <p dir="ltr">With architectural historian John Grindrod, Ros Taylor tells the story of Milton Keynes and the Open University.</p> <p dir="ltr">With thanks to <a href="https://www.johngrindrod.co.uk/">John Grindrod</a>, the author of <a href= "https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/grindrod">Iconicon, Concretopia and Outskirts</a> and the presenter of <a href= "https://www.johngrindrod.co.uk/podcast">Monstrosities Mon Amour.</a> His forthcoming book, <a href= "https://www.johngrindrod.co.uk/lgbtqsuburbia">Tales of the Suburbs</a>, on LGBTQ people in suburbia, is out in February 2026.</p> <p dir="ltr">Seth Thévoz read Lords speeches by Baron Richard Mitchison and Lord Gerald Gardiner, both in Hansard.</p> <p dir="ltr"><a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsVDpzJ95o8">Milton Keynes: Shopping as it Should Be</a> and an <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nP5YtIuAJg">ITN report from 1967</a> are available on YouTube. Clips of Harold Wilson and Jennie Lee are at the <a href= "https://www.open.ac.uk/library/digital-archive/exhibition/53/theme/1/page/1"> Open University Digital Archive</a>, which explains the OU's founding. This was an invaluable source of OU history. I also drew on the vast resources at the <a href= "https://www.livingarchive.org.uk/explore-archive">Milton Keynes Living Archive</a> and the original <a href= "https://www.theplanformiltonkeynes.co.uk/the-plan">Plan for Milton Keynes</a>.</p> <p> </p>

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