Milton Keynes is excellently placed in the heart of the country, providing a huge range of intercity services and national connections that make it ideal for any business that’s looking to expand across the north of London.

Connections

Both our available commercial properties in Milton Keynes provide quick and easy access by road to the Milton Keynes Central railway station, from where it’s possible to reach London Euston station in under half-an-hour. The town at large boasts five railway stations in total, offering local routes to the Marston Vale and West Coast Main Lines among many others.

Precedent House, an architecturally-stunning two-storey business premises that’s tailor-made to be the perfect head office, is just north of Milton Keynes Central via the A5. Meanwhile, our Lyon Road industrial space is to the south of the city centre in Denbigh, also well connected to the A5 via Watling Street. What both units have in common is swift access to the M1 motorway, providing excellent links for businesses to the south and north of the country.

The M1 runs along the east side of Milton Keynes, leading to the development of a number of distribution centres along nearby junctions. The A5 road leads through the centre of the town too, with the A509, A421 and A422 providing effective routes to Wellingborough, Kettering, Buckingham and Bedford areas. Furthermore, the area is well-populated with a range of bus services – including services from the Milton Keynes coachway and Milton Keynes Central railway station – that provide regular routes to Aylesbury and Luton as well as Oxford and Cambridge. A Park Ride service also operates regularly.

The international London Luton Airport is within thirty minutes’ drive from the city’s centre, accessible by a direct bus route provided at Milton Keynes Central station. Birmingham International station, and Birmingham Airport by extension, are also directly accessible by rail in under an hour. With additional connections to the National Cycle Network and the Grand Union Canal, it’s hard to doubt the geographical advantages Milton Keynes has to offer.

Nearby Amenities

Both of our Milton Keynes properties are placed next to major arterial roads leading to convenient retail outlets including Asda and the MK1 Shopping Centre near Lyon Road or Tesco Express near Precedent House, plus many more.

Employees working out of Lyon Road can pop along to TT Café for light refreshment, situated just off Denbigh Road, while high street coffee chains abound in and around Stadium MK – home to Milton Keynes Dons Football Club. Meanwhile there is a clutch of fast food chains within walking distance of Precedent House, with KFC and Subway on the doorstep. Employees seeking a caffeine boost can also head to the nearby Shell and BP garages for bean-to-cup coffee.

Local Businesses

Forming a key part of the original vision for Milton Keynes is the purpose-built town centre featuring a shopping centre, art gallery, two cinemas and several hotels alongside the area’s designated business district and central railway station – to name only a few.

With only 0.6% of businesses in the region employing more than 250 people, your neighbours will be the 99.4% of small-to-medium enterprises that make up the lifeblood of the local economy and culture.

Despite this fact, constant investment in the region has made it a desirable location to a number of significant organisations and popular brands. It is the UK headquarters of Argos, Domino’s Pizza and Marshall Amplification as well as vehicle manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Suzuki and Volkswagen. Other notable companies with operations based in the area include Abbey National, Aston Martin, Network Rail, Open University, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Santander UK and…. the list goes on! The area draws a high proportion of international companies and entrepreneurial activity around the automotive and racing industries in particular.

As a relatively new town, the area has become a natural focal point for firms looking to network and build their market share. Consequently, it’s of no surprise that growth in Milton Keynes continues to sky-rocket: between 2004 and 2013, jobs growth increased by 18.2%. That’s more growth than London saw during the same period (17.1%)!

Notable Buildings

Visitors to Milton Keynes are spoiled for choice by the range of activities and attractions that are on offer in every corner.

The most notable building, in terms of raw scale alone, has to be the open air National Bowl. Boasting a capacity of 65,000 the venue provides a perfect environment for large live events. Meanwhile, more intimate concerts can be found in south-easterly Wavendon where the Stables venue provides a popular place to hear blues, folk, jazz, rock and music from around the world.

Providing retail therapy to hundreds and thousands each day, Midsummer Place and thecentre:mk offer a variety of shops too great for this guide to list, reaching into numbers well beyond 400. The Theatre District, at the city’s core, is renowned as a place to hang out and have fun. Milton Keynes Theatre is, in fact, one of the most successful outside London, offering up a steady stream of musicals, pantomimes and operas to enjoy. High-quality diners, restaurants and unique boutique shops as well as lively nightclubs and bars in the area await those seeking recreation.

MK Gallery, the town’s municipal art gallery, organises regular exhibitions of international art available to the public completely for free. For the more adventurous, the Xscape Centre encompasses a large indoor snow slope for skiing and snowboarding, in addition to climbing walls, a bowling alley, a casino and much more.

For history buffs there’s the famous Bletchley Park complex, the site where Alan Turing cracked the German Enigma Code in World War 2. It now plays host to the Museum of Wartime Cryptography and the National Museum of Computing. The town also offers noteworthy green spaces, with serene and scenic walks and outdoor activities (including abseiling, archery and windsurfing) available at Caldecotte Lake. Stowe Gardens is another ideal park for a day out, made up of 250 acres of nature littered with monuments and temples.

And by no means is this an exhaustive list of offerings in Milton Keynes. Among the town’s outer districts and surrounding villages, there are many more unique places to visit: from the Linford Manor Arts Centre in Great Linford, to the Tennis and Bowls Clubs in Old Bradwell or the public green in Campbell Park where, it is planned, the canal will receive its own marina in the near future.

University

As a new town, Milton Keynes does not yet have its own local university campus. However, the steady and reliable development of the area leaves hope for the future, with the University of Bedfordshire’s Milton Keynes Campus providing a solid base to allow those ambitions to grow. Notably, the town boasts the largest population centre without its own university, which speaks volumes about the area’s many attractive qualities.

The Open University’s headquarters are based in the town’s Walton Hall district, with up to 200 full-time postgraduates located on-site and across their campus buildings. Cranfield University for postgraduates is conveniently located in nearby Cranfield, Bedfordshire. Of course, campuses across the country’s nearby cities are accessed relatively easily via the town’s extensive road and rail connections.

About Milton Keynes

The ‘New City’ of Milton Keynes was designated and developed during the mid-to-late 1960s. Its name derives from the nearby local village now known as Middleton which, remarkably, dates back to at least the 11th century. Then it was known as ‘Middeltone’ before it became ‘Middelton Kaynes’ in the 13th century. Once this area of Buckinghamshire was comprised largely of undeveloped farmland and villages. However, archaeological evidence discovered prior to the new town’s construction suggests that settlements of Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval eras once stood in the region.

Today, out of the region’s rich rural heritage, the ‘new’ Milton Keynes has risen proudly as one of the country’s most promising up-and-coming economic hubs. This is in part due to its central location, with its equidistance from Birmingham, Cambridge, Leicester, London and Oxford chosen especially to provide the area with the potential for regional centre status. The town doesn’t disappoint, offering up a culture of vibrancy and diversity befitting its location! Art, sculpture and architecture are available to see all around the city with galleries, museums and theatres across the city centre and surrounding areas. Home to an ever-increasing selection of recreational activities and tourist attractions including indoor skiing, sky-diving and a new Pop Up Food Festival, the area continues to entice investment by government and private industry.

Local News

For local news specific to the Balsall Heath region, we recommend the following:

• http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news
• http://www.businessmk.co.uk/