Milton Keynes - Soddom & Gomorrah

SODOM AND GOMORRAH

I am actually in the final editing stage of my book but have decided to slip this additional chapter into the text. My reason for doing so will, I hope, become apparent within the next few paragraphs.

As I drive to the radio station each morning to broadcast my show it is dark. Some mornings I am privileged to witness the most beautiful of sunrise as the car makes its way to Newport Pagnell along Childs Way. If there is a low cloud base I miss out on this start to my morning and it is on such days that I have seen small red lights low on the skyline. At first I thought I was seeing traffic lights at Junction 14 of the M1 but no, the contour of the land would make this impossible.

After broadcasting my show, driving home, the reason for the red lights became apparent. They are there to stop low, or should that be high, flying aircraft colliding with the latest Milton Keynes planning monstrosity, The Twin Towers of Soddom and Gomorrah !

I made a special journey in mid  August 2020 to try and locate these towers and found them adjacent to Marlborough Street in Central Milton Keynes. One larger than the other I assume these are lift shafts around which another carbuncle of Central Milton Keynes planning and design will soon  be wrapped.

Never mind the bit: NO BUILDING SHALL BE TALLER THAN THE SURROUNDING TREES, just because a building is tall does not mean it has to be ugly. Consider Coit Tower in San Francisco, The Empire State Building in New York, The Eifel Tower in Paris, The Gherkin and The Shard in London.

Coit Tower - built in 1933 in the shape of a fireman’s hose using Lillie Hitchcock Coit’s bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco.

The Empire State Building - at 102 floors high this icon of New York opened in 1931.

The Eifel Tower – constructed started in January 1887. Paris would not be Paris without the 1.062 feet tall Eifel Tower.

London’s Gherkin - comes in at a modest 590 feet and was opened in April 2004.

The Shard – the tallest building in Britain stands at 1,017 feet above ground. Quite a new addition to London’s skyline The Shard began its construction in March 2009.

I would suggest that London, Paris, New York and San Francisco would not be the cities we know were it not for these iconic TALL buildings.

Work began on Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London in June 1675. When finished Saint Paul’s reached 362 feet. A California Redwood is around 240 feet tall. Would you want to obscure Saint Paul’s by planning a forest of California Redwoods around it ? Certainly not.  Neither would any sane person wish to hide any of the buildings I have here shared with my readers.

If Central Milton Keynes is to have high rise buildings then why can it not have architectural design and quality the likes of these examples ?  Could you imagine Sir Christopher Wren inflicting the Xscape on London or Lilly Coit financing The Milton Keynes Hub in San Franciso ?

Now we have the twin towers of Soddom and Gomorrah assaulting our eyes.

I have a solution !  When whatever is to be wrapped around these under construction towers is completed, every single person within the system that gave planning permission should be forced to abseil down their height, preferably using only an extending dog lead !. A video could be made and posted on YouTube, I am sure that would go viral. Viral and help protect Milton Keynes from all future planning misadventures !