There is a fine irony in the juxtaposition of your editorial (The Guardian view on the future of rail: managed decline is no way forward, 29 May) and John Harris’s article on the success story that is Milton Keynes (Want to see where Britain’s political future will be decided? Head to Milton Keynes, 29 May).
You remind readers that in the summer there will be a “popular vote” to help determine the location of the future headquarters of Great British Railways (GBR), which will supersede Network Rail and oversee both services and infrastructure. The administrative HQ of Network Rail may be located in London, but its operational HQ is in Milton Keynes, where it acts as a key national centre for engineering, infrastructure, support services and national timetabling, and is the city’s biggest and best-known employer, with around 5,000 staff. It is located in a splendidly modern building adjacent to the main railway station.
Harris points out that Milton Keynes possesses an “air of modernity” and exudes an “optimistic, light-footed original spirit” – just the kind of attributes that a country so badly in need of renewal is crying out for.
A decision to locate GBR’s HQ in any of the other cities bidding to become its home will be wide open to the pork-barrel politics that this government is so attracted to, and it must mean that those 5,000 jobs and the ideal building in which they work in Milton Keynes are at serious risk of redundancy.
If the former Network Rail centre in Milton Keynes is not chosen to be the new national HQ for GBR, it will also mean that the new city is being deliberately levelled down in order to enable the transport secretary to brag about levelling up somewhere else. This would constitute a massive waste of public money and a wilful trashing of the exemplary status of Milton Keynes that is so convincingly identified by John Harris.
David Head
Peterborough
• John Harris’s otherwise thoughtful article was spoiled by a cheap and ill-considered jibe at the expense of Crossrail. “Imagine the kind of money spent on London’s new Elizabeth line – £19bn, at the last count – being used to create places characterised by community, sustainability, strong transport links and expansive public space.”
You don’t have to imagine it, John. Just go to Woolwich (and many other sites along the Crossrail route) and you will see the impact that well-planned new transport links can make in helping transform previously disadvantaged and badly connected areas. The two should not be seen as in conflict.
What is needed is a return to the visionary strategic planning – embracing housing, transport and other social, economic and environmental needs – which created both Milton Keynes and the Elizabeth line, and which, sustained over time, can deliver real benefits to all parts of the country.
Nick Raynsford
President, Town and Country Planning Association, and former deputy chairman, Crossrail
• John Harris’s enthusiasm for Milton Keynes is misplaced. It’s built at disastrously low densities, making public transport uneconomic, ensuring car dependency and squandering our scarce farmland. At a time of gathering world climate and food emergencies, building any more car-dependent sprawls in Europe’s most densely populated country – already importing a third of its food – is no solution to housing need.
Jon Reeds
Smart Growth UK
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