Wolfson Economics Prize

The Wolfson Economic Prize is a relatively new economics competition  organised and funded by Simon Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Aspley Guise, and run by the Policy Exchange think tank.  The first Prize was run in 2012 and asked entries to submit proposals as to how the Eurozone could be safely dismantled.  It attracted 425 entries from across the world, and was was submitted by the team led by Roger Bootle from Macroeconomics research consultancy firm Capital Economics, entitled Leaving the Euro: A Practical Guide.

A second prize was launched in November 2013.  The subject of the prize has been hotly debated for some time, and remains a topic of political and professional debate in response to one of the major issues facing this country at the current time; the housing crisis.  The question posed by the prize organisers was, “How would you deliver a new Garden City which is visionary, economically viable, and popular?”.

Garden cities were first established in Hertfordshire, at Letchworth and then Welwyn, and have been one of the greatest achievements of town and country planning.  Their success, largely acknowledged in hindsight, prompted the development of the new towns in Britain in the post war years, which arguably culminated in the most complete and best realised form at Milton Keynes.  There’s an affection for garden cities at the moment – the Coalition Government revived the idea in designating Ebbsfleet earlier this year, and they also published a prospectus to promote the idea amongst local authorities or similar partnerships following that announcement.  A recent poll conducted by the Policy Exchange suggests support for garden cities is high across the board.

My wife and I decided to enter the competition, and we spent many hours between November and the closing date in early March mulling over the issues, the possible solutions and scenarios and our many ideas for a beautiful, fully realised future city based on the garden cities principle.  It all culminated in mad weekend where we toiled on our submission for a joint total of 40 hours to get the thing completed and submitted.  We were inspired by Milton Keynes, and tried to be creative in expressing our vision, using a time travelling Mayor to express his delight at having lived in our garden city for a quarter of a century, since moving there in 2021.  We pondered what it meant to be popular and visionary – can there be such a thing? – and defined our garden city as something very different to that which is almost embarrassingly proposed at Ebbsfleet.

And today, you can see our entry published by the judges.  Amongst 279 entries, our was highly commended and was recognised,

“for a financially-aware and credible proposal with a very clear survey of relevant financial issues. The Judges enjoyed this entry’s introspection into the definition of key terms in the Prize Question and the way it presented a vision of the future through the eyes of the city’s future Mayor. They felt it was a human proposal designed for people”.

We cannot express how chuffed we are.

 

Milton Keynes – I like it. Honest.

In Milton Keynes, the seats light up.

It took me a very long time to like Milton Keynes. I almost wrote ‘love’ then, but I thought better of it. I do like it, but I don’t love it. I love Krakow for the town square and rambling central streets; I love San Francisco for the bay and for retro coffee shops; I love London for the feeling that anything could happen at any moment to make the day memorable. I really can’t think of anything I love Milton Keynes for; it wouldn’t be any of those things I just mentioned though, obviously.

Milton Keynes is geometric.  Amazon is based there.  It has concrete cows. It’s completely dominated by cars, and pedestrians are pushed under subways. It all looks identical when you’re in the centre, and out on the roads, you’ll see cut grass road verges but no houses. You’ll get lost in the shopping centre because it’s very confusing. It takes years of practise to even cope with that. Don’t cycle anywhere because it’s totally indecipherable. Even though they started with a clean bit of paper, the town centre is a long uphill walk from the station.  Even the name, Milton Keynes, has nothing to do with anyone worthy, like Milton or, er, Keynes.

But despite all that, I still like it. I first went to Milton Keynes in 1993. I’d passed through it on the train before then, which is often the best way to see new towns. But, in 1993, I had to get off. It was a hot day in July, and I was whisked from the station, along H6 (did I mention all the major roads are ‘horizontal’ or ‘vertical’ and numbered) to one of the villages right on the edge that’s yet to be engulfed by the city. Give it time.

And over the next 12 years, I went back, and went back, and went back – not, it has to be said, by choice. I gradually realised that – despite the utter confusion I felt for about seven of those years; despite the lack of a coherent bus service; despite the theatre being parked 400 metres across a windswept car park from the shops; despite having a town centre park so divorced from the town centre I never ventured in it, despite having a phoney football team that nods to south London (and is actually in Bletchley) and despite the silly hippy names for many of the roads – people like living there.

On the whole, Milton Keynes – MK if you want to be cool (ish) – is thoroughly charming, very clean, has very little congestion despite all the cars, has a great Council and has pretty much everything you could ever want or need in it or near it. People flock there and stay there. It’s utterly bland and totally unchallenging and therein lies its charm, because it at least had a damn good shot at being neither. It’s like a slightly tipsy, untrendy dad, showing you pictures of how it used to be in the seventies and how it had a long beard and was centre of attention and had gyro-copters flying round. And now here it is, all cords and slippers and dozing off in front of the telly at 9.30.

And really, despite how it sounds, I really like Milton Keynes.