Cllr David Hopkins is the Leader of the Conservative Group on Milton Keynes Council. He also chairs the Parish Council in his local Parish of Wavendon
People are sick and tired of the ‘they said we said’ ‘yaa boo’ bickering style of politics that we have endured for generations at local government level. This is why, in Milton Keynes, we are offering voters a style of community-focused politics that concentrates on the street-based issues that really matter to, and make a day-to-day difference to, people as they struggle with the challenges that life in 2024 places before them.
Nothing new here, I hear you mutter, however, rather than just talk the talk we do walk the walk.
We start at Parish level. The whole of Milton Keynes is parished and benefits from that level of local government offering a community voice on issues that matter most locally. Almost all our councillors and councillor candidates are or have been Parish Councillors and/or local school governors serving in their local area.
Parishes are predominately nonpolitical in nature. Long before becoming Conservative candidates those expressing an interest in that possibility are encouraged to gain experience of asking questions at City Council meetings as members of the public or on behalf of their local parish as part of the training to joining the City Council itself. Questions not designed to get one over on the other political parties in the council, but which question or request answers on topics that the City Council may not even have previously considered.
The Conservative Group on MK City Council does not focus on trying to find ways to ‘catch out’ the Labour/Lib Dem coalition-led administration. We focus on the issues that people tell us really matter to them locally.
As an example, at a recent Full Council meeting, Conservatives brought forward a motion for debate that examined the need to provide additional playing fields in its expansion areas to meet the overwhelming need for such facilities to satisfy the demand for youth soccer (boys and girls) and as a lasting legacy to the success of Milton Keynes soccer superstar, Leah Williamson. More green spaces that are also good for the health and wellbeing of the community at large, offering buffering between what otherwise might be endless rows of new housing, all of which tend to mirror each other in terms of design, regardless of the developer.
A second motion called on the council to examine the impacts of years and years of development and the resulting ‘construction dust’ on the settled community and newly installed community – focusing in particular on its impacts on children in new schools and nurseries surrounded by housing developments often over many months and years.
Both issues of genuine concern to local people, not considered previously by the ruling coalition and not a hint of ‘yaa boo’ in either.
So why does all this matter? Well because we have to offer people a genuine choice between political dogma or an incentive to vote, because their local candidate will (if elected) actually focus on the issues that matter to them, in their street, at their local school, in their community group, or in the environment closest to their homes. Candidates with a track record of delivering in their communities long before they put themselves forward as city council candidates.
Candidates or councillors that win or retain their seats despite the ‘national trends or opinion polls’ do so because they have risen above the political affray and have truly delivered as an advocate for the communities they represent. They are part of that community, volunteering locally, working as trustees on local charities or as mentioned before, serving as school governors focusing on ensuring the local school is an important and shared community facility, at the heart of that community.
Many agree that Milton Keynes is truly the city of the future. It was once the butt of jokes about its scores of roundabouts, grey architecture and concrete cow sculptures, but no more.
Now it’s Britain’s innovation destination, a testbed for how the whole country is likely to live in the years to come. What happens in MK today now often rolls out to the rest of the UK in the future.
Milton Keynes connectivity has made the place popular with businesses of all kinds. It is located on the West Coast rail line, enjoys primary road links via the M1 and the rapidly improving A421 expressway to Cambridge and beyond, and its star industry is now international motor racing — the Red Bull Formula 1 team has its ever-expanding base located here.
It’s a can-do city with ambitious, can-do people looking to ‘do stuff’ differently from elsewhere in the country. A city calling out for a new style of politics that rises above dogma and demands a community/city first approach to doing local political business. The Conservatives on Milton Keynes Council have focused on shaping that vision for a new style of political management and on delivering at a truly local level.
Parish politics at city council level.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if all cities were like Milton Keynes,” was the message of one lavish TV ad filmed in the early 1980s, showing red balloons drifting through leafy, child-filled suburbs. Let’s hope that indeed one day all local politics will be like in Milton Keynes.