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A councillor has called for a pause to work on the next Milton Keynes Local Plan, to allow decisions on other planning matters that may affect its course, to be taken.

David Hopkins, who represents the Danesborough & Walton ward, is set to question Milton Keynes City Council Leader Pete Marland about the issue at a Cabinet meeting tonight (Tuesday).

Hopkins has cited any decisions regarding East West Rail, as well as a planned report next year from a taskforce on whether new towns could be located along the M1 corridor, which includes areas to the north of Milton Keynes, as reasons to pause work on the plan.

Milton Keynes City Council is also proposing building an additional 2,750 homes around Bow Brickhill and Little Brickhill, and 3,000 more to the east of Wavendon and Woburn Sands.

Milton Keynes sign. Photo: MK Citizen / Jane Russell

A draft local plan for MK2050 was published in June, with a consultation on the plan currently taking place.

The City Council is aiming to submit the local plan for independent examination in May 2025, but Hopkins believes this timescale should be delayed.

‘I am calling for a pause, not a halt, to this process’, Hopkins said.

‘Milton Keynes continues to offer potential to add to the housing numbers within its boundary, but we need certainty and to me a brief pause in the process is basic common sense and professional project management - and that simply is all I am suggesting.

Councillor David Hopkins has tabled a question for this evening's Milton Keynes Council Cabinet meeting, calling for a pause to development of the MK 2050 Local Plan

‘A 12-to-18-month delay will not impact our ability to deliver much needed additional housing - indeed, by providing certainty, it would in the long term help that process moving forward.’

The full question which Hopkins is due to table at tonight’s meeting is: Are you willing and minded pausing the existing, already outdated draft Local Plan which has become a source of anguish and concern to so many residents?

Instead, will you commit to produce a fresh, new MK2050 Local Plan, taking onboard regional and national political, transport and planning priorities, at a date sometime in 2025 or 2026 when the planning landscape becomes so much clearer and there is increased certainty and at that stage to genuinely engage with local people once again throughout a revised process?

'We need certainty': Councillor calls for pause to Milton Keynes 2050 Local Plan