Milton Keynes Smart City excellence: From driverless pods to city status

In this interview, we talk to Paul Thomas, Director of Planning and Placemaking at Milton Keynes City Council, and Cllr Shanika Mahendran, Cabinet Member for Economy, Sustainability and Innovation, about what it takes to run a smart city, after a decade of innovating and evolving at Milton Keynes to build a city for the future. 

Much has been achieved since Milton Keynes City Council launched its MK: Smart programme in 2014. Since then, the citizens of Milton Keynes have become used to seeing tests of driverless pods in the city, as well as ordering food and other essentials via Starship Robots.

Another big change happened in 2022, when HM Queen Elizabeth II formally granted Milton Keynes city status. The city’s smart credentials were undoubtedly an essential part of its bid.

Credit: Milton Keynes Council

So, where does Milton Keynes go next, and what can other local authorities learn from its progress so far?

Ten years after declaring itself a smart city, Milton Keynes is continuing to innovate while sharing ideas and collaborating with others.

The city’s population has risen tenfold in under 60 years, reaching nearly 300,000. But the City Council is determined this growth is about much more than building houses and other amenities.

Rather, it wants to explore further ways that tech can benefit residents. “Innovation is in our blood, it’s in our DNA,” says Paul Thomas, who was appointed as the city council’s Director of Planning and Placemaking three years ago.

Indeed, Milton Keynes has long been synonymous with taking risks in order to lead on innovation, from teaming up with the Open University in the late sixties to provide higher education through distance learning to becoming the first UK place to offer kerbside recycling in 1992.

Thomas explains that this innovation is based on a strong vision at the centre of the council – which has certainly been helped by the council’s consistent political leadership for the past decade, with Labour in overall or minority control.

“Good planning and consistency of strong leadership are deeply baked into policy,” says Thomas. “It is the kind of thing that, as an officer, I love, because we all understand what we need to achieve to deliver a more prosperous future for our residents.”

Milton Keynes city has one of the highest economic productivity rates in the country, and about one-third of jobs in the city are tech-based. Such jobs are close to the heart of Cllr Shanika Mahendran who, when not on council business, works as manager for air quality and transport at Labour Climate and Environment Forum.

Her appointment to the council’s cabinet last year with the economy, sustainability and innovation portfolio meant it gained a member who was focused on innovation, providing targeted support for Council leader Cllr Peter Marland.

Cllr Mahendran relishes the fact that Milton Keynes is seen as a pioneer that is open to different approaches and happy to be used as a testbed. “It’s an exciting place to come and try new things,” she says.

Credit: Milton Keynes Council

One aim is to embed smart city thinking into more council services. The city council is always keen to collaborate with the private sector and perhaps bend the ear of government over its promised next generation of new towns.

“All the smart city work has been really collaborative. We don’t do anything in isolation as a council,” says Cllr Mahendran.

One aim is to avoid the brain drain of young people who tend to move elsewhere when they reach their late 20s. In March, the council launched a five-year strategy for tech, smart city and digital industries. It also created a dedicated tech website to support local firms while awarding funds to five start-ups.

In July, a consultation was launched over Milton Keynes’s city plan for 2050. This involves widespread meetings with residents, businesses and other stakeholders. “These types of plans are only successful when people tell us what they want their future city to look and feel like,” says Thomas.

The Council not only wants to hear from as many people as possible but is conscious of the need to consult those with little or no interest in planning. “The growth of Milton Keynes is everyone’s business. We’re determined to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to have their say. People often feel like that their views won’t make a difference, that’s not the case, we want as many people as possible to come forward and help us build the city that they will be proud to live and raise their families in.”

As you may expect, the city attracts a great deal of interest internationally from authorities and companies wanting to learn from its experience. Thomas would like to see Milton Keynes successes’ acknowledged on its home turf too, so more people can judge the ingredients needed to develop a smart city with a GDP that is larger than that of Oxford and Cambridge combined.

“We’re starting to have these conversations with government. We are very proudly saying you need to look at us as a live case study of a growing, thriving and successful new town.”

Others have picked up on the city’s Starship robots – autonomous machines that provided a lifeline to residents during the pandemic by delivering food and other essential supplies, and the city may soon offer a driverless shuttle service.

Starship Robot. Credit: Milton Keynes Council

“The Starship robots were first trialled in the UK in Milton Keynes. Now we’ve got 200 robots that do really important deliveries for local people. We have seen other areas up and down the country see the success of these robots in Milton Keynes and introduce them in their own towns and cities,” explains Thomas.

Driverless pods are currently being trialled in Milton Keynes, ahead of the proposed shuttle service. “We’ll probably be the first city in the UK to do that, and then others will follow after we’ve tested it. I think our projects are being used across cities, but I don’t think our approach as a whole has been picked up, examined and replicated.”

Linked to that, Cllr Mahendran feels there is a need to acknowledge the innovation taking place in universities and perhaps use higher education as a way of developing further opportunities in smart cities.

“They’ve got these funding pots that allow them to pursue new innovations,” she remarks, adding, “A lot of the projects we worked on around autonomous vehicles have been in partnership with universities who are actively researching the technologies and human acceptance of autonomous travel.”

The Open University is also currently considering whether to open a physical university in the centre of Milton Keynes where students can attend classes in person rather than learn from a distance.

Then there is, of course, artificial intelligence (AI). Last year, world leaders gathered in Bletchley Park to discuss the potential and downsides of AI. One year later, Milton Keynes is staging its own AI Summit at the end of October where businesses can showcase modern tech.

According to Thomas, it is important for Milton Keynes to recognise when they makes the news and trade off that, but also important to generate news of their own. “We want to establish Milton Keynes as a global leader, and our door is always open to trying innovative projects if it helps us deliver a greener and healthier future for our residents and businesses. I love going out there and saying: ‘come and talk to us about what we’re doing; tell us about how you can work in our city; but also have a listen to what we did and see if you want to do the same’.”

Interested in more on this topic? LGIU members can access:

• Collection: Future technology
• Top takeaways from the SmartCitiesWorld Climate Action Summit 2024
• Artificial Intelligence and local government
• Transformed by AI – what will generative artificial intelligence mean for jobs and local government?
• Can AI help local government with regulatory inspections?

Find out more about Milton Keynes Smart Cities programme here.