Want to see Thomas More’s Utopia in action? Come to Milton Keynes – iNews

To the sneerers, Milton Keynes is a soulless stretch of concrete cows and roundabouts.

But the notorious new town is actually the culmination of humankinds search for Utopia, a new BBC season will claim.

As a young person, I did find Milton Keynes a boring, soulless place to grow up. It was just famous for concrete cows and roundabouts Filmmaker Richard Macer

A BBC4 series investigating the concept of Utopia, the blueprint for a perfect world coined by Thomas More in 1516, concludes that the visionary overspill town established 50 years ago is our closest post-war embodiment of the ideal.

The centrepiece of the Utopia season, which examines the designs of architects including Frank Lloyd Wright and Norman Foster, is a documentary about Milton Keynes by Richard Macer, the filmmaker behind a revelatory BBC expose of life inside British Vogue magazine.

Macer, brought up in Milton Keynes, admits he used to feel embarrassed about living in an urban experiment once dismissed as an utterly depersonalised nightmare.

Returning aged 50, to move back in with his parents, as Milton Keynes celebrated its half-centenary, he now recognises the Buckinghamshire town as a prosperous tribute to enlightened social engineering.

As a young person, I did find Milton Keynes a boring, soulless place to grow up. You couldnt find a decent pub. It was just famous for concrete cows and roundabouts, he told the i paper.

Now I recognise the place as a proper Utopian vision, an attempt to create aspirational, perfect living spaces for people, with greenery at its heart and totally funded from the public purse.

Milton Keynes, which has the highest proportion of new builds in Britain outside London, offers a model alternative to the failures of high-rise urban living exposed by the Grenfell Tower disaster.

It was social engineering to achieve a positive ideal, Macer said. Its grid network was inspired by Los Angeles.

They created little sustainable communities with their own schools and doctors. The founders ruled that no building should be taller than the tallest tree and every householder was given a tree to plant in their garden. Its economy is buoyant.

Macer discovered threats to this utopia during filming. One councillor said they are desperate not to become a Crewe, a place people just pass through that dies. They feel Milton Keynes doesnt have cultural cache. Its not like Manchester.

Macer, who has previously documented the lives of Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder and Katie Price, said he hoped viewers wouldnt find an hour devoted to Milton Keynes boring.

The concept of Utopia has been interpreted as a place or state of things in which everything is perfect.

Cassian Harrison, BBC4 Channel Editor, said: Utopian ideals have always fascinated and inspired the human race from art and architecture movements, to genres of fiction, new experimental societies and beyond.

The season of films will delve into a world of visionaries, philosophers, and genius to examine what propels us to endlessly search out ideas of perfection.

It is name is adapted from the 13th century settlement Mideltone Kaynes.

There are more than 20,000 parking spaces in central Milton Keynes and 130 roundabouts.

Main roads are designated H or V depending on whether they run horizontally or vertically.

The sculpture of concrete cows and calves was created in 1978 by Canadian artist Liz Leyh.

It is home to 22m trees and shrubs, around 100 for every resident.

The population of 275,000 enjoy a per capita income 47% higher than the national average.

The Style Councils 1985 single Come To Milton Keynes satirised towns supposed artificiality.

Around 7.5m people live within a one-hour drive of Milton Keynes.

@adamsherwin10

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Want to see Thomas More's Utopia in action? Come to Milton Keynes - iNews