Council leader approves £25m booster bid for Milton Keynes town despite opposition call for delay

A bid for £25 million to kick-start structural and economic changes in Bletchley and Fenny Stratford is set to be made in time for a Government deadline of the end of this month.
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Milton Keynes Council leader Pete Marland on Tuesday (October 27) gave his official seal of approval for the bid despite a Conservative councillor’s call for a delay to improve its chances of success.

The Bletchley and Fenny Stratford Town Investment Plan (TIP) includes a bid for a £10 million war chest for the council to buy sites for housing and other uses.

There is also a £3.8 million proposal to create a brand new eastern entrance for a “super station” at Bletchley Railway Station, and to spend money on creating a more attractive link to the Brunel Centre and Queensway.

Cllr Allan Rankine (Cons, Bletchley Park) welcomed the work done on the TIP but he didn’t think it was as polished as it should be, and had no single eye-catching focus.

“The biggest funding request is for a free handout of £10 million for the council to spend on unspecified land acquisitions,” he said.

“For the biggest request to be detail free demonstrates a severe lack of ambition for this bid.”

He urged a review of the bid which would mean it being submitted early in the new year, for the last of three Government deadline dates.

The council wants to improve connections from the railway station into Bletchley town centreThe council wants to improve connections from the railway station into Bletchley town centre
The council wants to improve connections from the railway station into Bletchley town centre

“It’s not a competition or a race,” he said.

“It is the quality of the bid that will determine the level of grant, not the speed of submission.

“If this goes in as it is and we don’t get the money you will have let residents down across Bletchley and the council will have delayed the town’s regeneration for another generation.”

But Cllr Marland (Lab, Wolverton) pointed to an independent assessment of the bid as good.

He rejected criticism of asking for a £10 million projects war chest.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say that it’s free money. It’s a normal concept and it will be ring-fenced for strategic projects,” he said.

The council wants to spend money on buying important pieces of land, or buildings, but Cllr Marland says it does not make business sense to announce those to private owners.

If the council buys land for developments it would then recycle the money in other projects across Bletchley and Fenny Stratford.

“I think it’s enormously positive for the town of Bletchley,” said Cllr Marland.

The TIP bid includes requests for £3.85 million for a new eastern entrance at the railway station, another £3 million for street level improvements across Bletchley and Fenny Stratford, £3 million for a tech park at the new Institute of Technology, £2.2 million for Bletchley Park, and £100,000 for fibre connectivity.

The Government has already given the council £1 million for new redways in the area.

The council expects the Government to come to a decision in early 2021.

The project has been given the title Groundbreaking Bletchley and Fenny. It has a website here: https://groundbreakingbletchleyandfenny.co.uk/