Milton Keynes Growth Strategy Consultation - The Story so Far

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 28th Oct 2006

The three-month consultation on how the City should grow ended last month and residents have had their say on proposals for the City's future. Over 1,600 responses in the form of completed questionnaires, letters and e-mails have been received.

All the responses from the consultation are now being analysed and this process should be completed by the end of November. A summary report of the consultation process (number of events, number of responses, and some 'headlines' about the issues that have been raised) will be reported to the Cabinet on 7 November 2006.

This will enable the Council to set out our position for the early sessions of the Examination in Public (EiP), which will deal with issues relating to the South-East Region as a whole.

A full report will be presented to the Council's Cabinet on 16 January 2007 to enable the Cabinet to consider its position on where the extra houses will go and other issues specific to Milton Keynes, which will be discussed at the South-East Plan EiP in March.

Both cabinet meetings will be held at the Council Chamber, Civic Offices, starting at 7 pm. The report for the meeting on 7 November is available on-line at http://cmis.milton-keynes.gov.uk/cmiswebpublic/Binary.ashx?Document=18166.

One of the main reasons for carrying out consultation in the summer was to help the Council finalise its position for the Examination in Public (EiP) of the new plan for the whole region - the South-East Plan. The EiP starts on 28 November and continues until the end of March 2007.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Isobel McCall, Leader of the Council, said: "We are encouraged by the level of response to the public consultation. This gives us the opportunity to form our position based on what residents want."

Over the next three to five years there will be further consultations on a series of new planning documents which, among other things, will make detailed proposals about where the new homes, jobs, infrastructure and community facilities will go.

If you want to see what others have said about the growth strategy, Milton Keynes Council has copies of all comments available for people to read in the planning reception area at the Civic Offices, during normal office hours.