The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire*

Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• Dont really have one but I like the curved bit of the new city when its lit up at night!
• The Snodome is pretty cool when the roof stays on!
• Xscape, the new retail/entertainment destination in Central Milton Keynes. Looks like one of the space ships out of Independence Day has landed in MK. Great outside - even better inside! Euprope's longest indoor real snow ski slope; lots of 'outdoor' shops selling lots of good stuff - mainly for skiing/boarding - but then again...who needs snow?
• Errrr, having trouble thinking of one. Perhaps the peace pagoda in Willen Park.
• Peace Pagoda
• The new SKI-DOME. Bloody huge thing. The theatre is impressive too, and the point is still an architectual favourite.
• Will be the snow dome
• The Point...it may look a bit tacky but MK is a 70s town so you can't blame us...anyway, the neon might be a bit "New York" but you can see it from the A5 when it's dark.
• The Church in Central Milton Keynes stands out a mile for it has the only curves in thew whole City Centre
• The new 'opera house cum multi story carpark and lots of new shops inside" building that they are building looks quite impressive on the old design qualities.
• The new theatre looks cool.
• The point marks the centre of MK and can be seen at night from a distance! but this will soon be taken over by MK's own yr 2k project - the Theatre
• The Buddhist Peace Pagoda near Willen Lake is quite interesting and has a nice-ish walk up to it from the Lake.
• Milton Keynes has no public buildings of any great joy. One possible exception is the oft overlooked Bletchly Park.
• The new theatre that will be completed next year (1999). Looks like a big top hat. In a word, Ace.

Demolish It Now Building

• I would say the multi storey car park in Bletchley but thats already been knocked down.
• Woughton Campus. Sir Frank Markham, my old school, easily the worst school in the town, have you SEEN the statistics for students getting their GCSE's? Grim reading, I can tell you, plus it brings back crap memories and it's basically just ugly all over.
• The whole bloody lot. Milton Keynes is a mistake from beginning to end.
• Netherfield shops
• The whole of Fullers Slade and Watling Way swimming pool.
• My skool - Stantonbury Campus - but I'm a kid, so of course I'm gonna say that. Nah, urm, all them buildings by Argos and Planet Ice and that lot, they're uglee!
• The nasty early housing estates.
• THE POINT! ALL OF NETHERFIELD!!! well dodgy!
• The train station, I used to work in the offices above and you could sometimes feel the trains go past. The view from the top floors is brilliant, you can see straight ahead. At night it's nice. But that doesn't stop you from thinking it looks like a big block of cement covered in mirrors though.
• The new city art's centre. It can be seen for MILES around, and the GREY LUMP that it makes on the landscape is truely UGLY.
• The whole of Wolverton
• the shopping centre in Central Milton Keynes
• The Point cinema: a architects dream. To the rest of us, a large Pyramint.

The Best Things

• It's quite easy to get around
• The wikkid round abouts that means you know U've found Milton Keynes but you now hav to weave you way round in your 'ickle motor like a pin-ball machine to get to your destination!..... and lets not even get on 2 your trippy cows and sketchy raving venue past (pre. Criminal Justice Act!) But of course all raves and more specifically venues are now above board and one would never even think of suggesting otherwise!
• Cable Radio Milton Keynes 89.8 fm, broadcasting since 1979.
• Bon Jovi and Robbie Williams are playing here in the summer!!!!
• It has a lot of job opportunities and it is fast developing, but unlike London the homes are not ridiculously expensive and the people are generally nicer.
• Cosgrove early on a sunny morning with a blue sky.
• Big indoor shopping centre which is good if its raining, but really clinical and very 70's. Cliff Richard recorded the video for "Speakers" there. Says a lot really...
• The pubs in Stony Stratford.
• Feels like an American city (but on a smaller scale). Great roads. Clean, green, spacious and modern.
• Roundabouts in a mini!
• *The only traffic lights are found in the heart of roads around the shopping centre. Otherwise they are located in the high streets of the little towns that make up Milton Keynes. * It's been built in grids. Every grid has a school, pub, newsagent and houses.
• Virtually no traffic jams.
• Walkways link the whole of MK ... The redway is often safe - however be a little careful if at night through 'iffy or unlit area's...
• Miles and Miles of country -like walks in the large amount of park land in the city. Lakes, sailing, canal boats and outdoor life for all within a short walk from almost anywhere.
• the mk kings are back
• The amount of planned, man-made, green-space, lakes, "open-space to get away from it all" type places.
• Great Linford- half a mile long, cool
• How can you say its green and clean?! It only feels like that because its so spread out. You can not get by here without a car so how green is that?
• Greenary, and lots of it. Everywhere you look.
• the free and east round system. don't people in Milton Keynes *know* what a traffic jam is?! No, quite possibly not, if it wasn't for venturing out to other cities.
• The best thing about MK is that its clean and green...
• Milton Keynes has an amazing system of cycle ways. Just look for the red paths. You can get just about anywhere without having to cycle on any major roads. Estates can get a bit tedious though - all that stop start as you cross all the small roads.
• The Iron Trunk Aqueduct on the Grand Union Canal on the Northants border. Just go and be impressed with Victorian engineering.

The Worst Things

• People have no style cos there's nothing different here; the same shops you find in every high street. Netherfield, Conniburrow, Fishermead, Fuller's Slade etc: All skanky estates you should avoid.
• *Gypsies *Crap weather *Fishermead
• There's not a lot to do in Milton Keynes at night unless you like getting drunk and are rich.
• Lloyd shaw
• Horizon Radio.
• Willen lake and the fish that I find floating on the surface! The bowl can only really be used in the summer cus its open air.
• The Tommy HIlfigered kids who hang round the city centre - does anyone really think you can wear that stuff from top to toe without looking a total div? The fact there are not many independent shops in the town, like you'd find in most other places. Most shops in MK are basically high street stores you'd find everywhere. Same old same old.
• The roundabout grid system. Whoever designed that should be shot if they're not dead already.
• Excess traffic, distance, lack and cost of public transport. Here's an idea. Why not lodge a petition to MK council to consider the founding of an economical monorail system. It's practical for a host of reasons. It wouldn't add to peak time congestion problems as with buses, taxis, cars, etc. Monorails' run on maglev mechanisms elevated high above ground level. They can be automated to deliver frequent services at reliable intervals, unlike busses and taxis. There ecological and consequently don't harm the environment, again unlike road going vehicles. Check out docklands, it uses monorails. Just picture it, you come out of a club, it's 3am, it's too late for a bus and you can't flag down a cab for trying. You fill in the gap. Courtesy of RNofEV.
• Hang overs after being in the pubs in Stony Stratford.
• All the clones, the Kevs, whatever you wanna call 'em, they seen to have taken over the place.
• GYPSIES.
• 3 Letters........ T.G.B's (ok, well, 4 then)
• Theres a lot of talk about how bad certain places are and others arguing that they are not really that bad. I suggest people email Thames Valley Police. They can (and will) provide you with Crime statistics for each city 'block'. I think the people who live in Netherfield, Fishermead, coffee hall et al will be unpleasantly suprised. I have the facts about these places, they have HIGH crime stats.
• Price of petrol!
• Having MK labelled as a concrete jungle...we have a lot of parks and greenery here...ok so its a bit built up in the centre but half the people who visit MK go there and no-where else, so how can they judge the WHOLE of the town when they haven't seen it. Y'know when I has a b-day disco, I hired The Barn at the Great Linford Arts Centre, and it is in the original part of Great Linford, near the Manor Studios, the pub and the church. My friend's mum, who lives in Whittlebury which is a very small boring village near Northampton said "Oh I didn't realise there were places like this in Milton Keynes," in her posh snotty voice. I mean what did she think it would be like...full of rough areas and loads of buildings. See what I mean!?
• Milton Keynes is being increasingly invaded by Travellers who move from area to area leaving all sorts of shit behind (e.g used sanitry towels....lovely) Steer well clear of the Fishermead & Springfield estates.
• *The amount of roundabouts. *If you have problems with finding places when driving, then it's best to invest in a street atlas (It's only a couple of quid). Because Milton Keynes is a very easy place to get lost in.
• M.K. taxis, you just can't get one when you want one. Although they aren't too bad on prices.
• It's getting very over populated and the builders are building the plots ontop of each other!
• Dumb vegetation planted by architects, rather than gardeners, that overgrows walk/cycle-ways in the housing estates.
• The only place in the world where the centre of town is effectivly shut after 8pm
• the underpasses, lots of attacks have happened under them.
• The young population is very young...
• Impossible to get around without a car, and trying to find a bus or a taxi in the town centre after 9pm is impossible.

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Last updated: 2007-12-17