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Marshworth:Milton Keynes
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BACKGROUND & HISTORY
Once the final decision had been taken in 21st January 1967, to create Milton Keynes – as a new city for more than 100,000 inhabitants rather than just another new town – the rush was on for the new Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) to build the hundreds of homes needed for those who, in turn, would build the city itself. The immediate result, with building starting in 1970, was the creation of a crescent of new council estates across Woughton parish. Although designed by the MKDC's own leading architects, these council houses followed the style of the times; with long rows of identical houses which are in retrospect now seen to be most redolent of quasi-military However, in some respects this criticism, retrospectively applying the standards of another time, is unfair. They were merely following the fashion of the time, when so many tall towers of council flats were built elsewhere soon to be demolished as unlivable in. That fate did not come to these Milton Keynes houses. Indeed - despite the cost limitations imposed by the Conservative government - they were well built, albeit in new materials, with large rooms were then demanded - in the Parker Morris standards – for council accommodation. Despite the widespread rumours amongst their tenants, there is no evidence that they were ever intended to be temporary buildings. The reason they were built in these materials not brick was simply that the government's 'Housing Yardstick', for public housing, was deliberately skewed to favor dense development; where MK's housing was - even on the original estates - low density. Accordingly resources were very tightly stretched. Even so, despite the new materials they have lasted remarkably well over the past 35 years; where 25 years is often reckoned to be the life of such a building and – faced with savage cutbacks in government funding – the council was never allowed to put in place adequate maintenance schedules.
Tinker’s Bridge was part of the second phase. A smaller estate, with single-pitched roofs and a more intimate layout though still featuring the use of modern materials on their facias, it was viewed at the time – at least by the residents of existing estates – as somewhat ‘up-market’. Marshworth (in the foreground) and Tinker's Bridge (to the right) when buil Around 1970/1971, the exact details were lost when English Partnerships chose to destroy the archives of the Development Corporation, it was decided that there was also a need for homes to be built for increasing numbers of professionals and managers at the helm of the Development Corporation itself. Accordingly Marshworth, a small estate based on a single road, was started. As a result, some time in 1973, the new bungalows were completed and occupied. Perhaps understandably, where this occurred
Whatever the exact legal arrangements, the Development Corporation clearly set out to make these ‘executive homes’ as desirable as possible. Indeed they were designed in house by their own architect, and his team, to be a flagship development for the new city. Not least, some of the middle and senior managers of the Development Corporationwere later to live in these bungalows. It is not surprising, therefore, that they threw into the mix everything needed to make it a highly desirable estate.
In particular, at a time when council estates were rigorously separated from private housing, they arranged for this development to be physically separated from the rest of Tinker’s Bridge; from the council estate bu
Above all, though, the bungalows ‘faced’ onto this open space and the canal – alb
The biggest bonus for the new owners was, th
Link detached houses on the Wates estate in Molesey, Surrey
The biggest bonus of all, still appreciated by current residents, was the ‘semi-private’ public space in effect reserved for use by them. With the barrier in front and the open space to the rear, this meant that the overall site was some ten acres; giving 0.4 acr
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