Practitioners need evaluations of why the intentions in plans fail in implementation. This paper seeks to identify and explain how the plans for neighbourhood layout in Milton Keynes so comprehensively failed in the process of realization. The 1970 plan should have generated dense development along urban main streets, lined with shops, services, bus stops and turnings. In the city as built, densities are lowest along the main roads; shops, services and bus stops are ensconced within residential and other blocks where they work badly; traffic is much faster; buses struggle to operate viably; and social mix objectives have probably been sacrificed. This failure is attributed to the Corporation's mistakes in traffic planning, to short-sighted private housebuilders, to rigid and unscientific DoE density controls and to slack thinking, drafting and drawing by the initial planning team, of which the author was a member. Suggestions are made for avoiding such disasters.
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