The Truth MKCC Wont Declare
MKCC’s own Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment confirms that buildings like Maybrook House are suitable and deliverable for housing. Yet despite years of inaction, vacancy, and visible decline, no urgency has been shown.
Bletchley is repeatedly treated as a future promise rather than a present responsibility. Sites are counted on spreadsheets while residents live with the consequences of neglect on the ground.
Neglect
Not Deferred
But Denied
Bletchley Isn’t Short of Opportunity It’s Short of Priority
Milton Keynes City Council often insists that Bletchley is not being neglected. Yet the Council’s own evidence base tells a more uncomfortable story.
In its Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA), MKCC identifies sites in Bletchley — including Maybrook House on Queensway — as suitable and deliverable for housing. In plain terms, this means the Council accepts these sites could and should be brought forward. Yet years later, some remain vacant, deteriorating, and unmanaged.
This exposes a clear disconnect between policy and reality. On paper, Bletchley helps MKCC meet housing targets. On the ground, residents live alongside decline while sites are quietly parked in a theoretical future pipeline. Neglect is not denied — it is deferred.
“Deliverable on paper. Neglected in reality.”
Download MKCC's Report Below
Deliverable on paper Neglected in reality
The SHLAA treats Bletchley largely as a numbers exercise: housing capacity, future assumptions, theoretical delivery. What it does not address is the real-world impact of long-term vacancy on streets, neighbourhoods, and local confidence. Nor does it explain why sites deemed deliverable are allowed to stagnate for years without visible intervention.
The contrast with Central Milton Keynes is striking. CMK benefits from dedicated studies, active delivery frameworks, and visible council leadership. Bletchley, by comparison, is expected to wait — often relying on low-scrutiny planning routes rather than proactive place management.
This is not opposition to development. It is opposition to dereliction, neglect, and the failure to act when powers and opportunities already exist. Bletchley has the sites, the permissions, and the potential. What it lacks is priority.
Bletchley deserves better than being left in the pipeline.
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