Published: 14/10/2009 00:00 - Updated: 19/10/2009 17:18

Talks underway for 'Angel of MK'

Plans to build a city cenotaph visible from the M1 are being discussed.

The structure, originally intended as a war memorial, will either end up at Station Square, Campbell Park,

The Point or the bandstand outside Midsummer Place.

The project is on track for unveiling on the significant date of November 11, 2011.

The four potential places are all on the ley lines of Milton Keynes, along which the city centre was originally designed.

MK NEWS revealed last October that talks about a central memorial were under way, but since then it has developed into having a broader purpose - even being dubbed 'the Angel of MK'.

Gavin Anderson, the arts guru behind FringeMK, isinvolved in the project.

A structure five storeys high has been mooted at project meetings.

He said: "At the moment we are looking at accessibility of the sites. The bandstand is a nice location, but what if 2,000 girl guides turned up there?

"It started as a memorial to remember the fallen but it's starting to become wider than that. It won't be as much of a cenotaph as a meeting place. It's going to be a big, iconic thing that hopefully we can see from the M1.

"There's a public feeling that Milton Keynes doesn't have that market square, with an old market cross, where people gather. People are calling it the angel of MK."

He realised Milton Keynes needed a site to display public grief when the Queen Mum died and people laid flowers outside Marks and Spencer.

One of the four locations will be settled on following a feasibility study, after which the public will be consulted and submissions for designs will be sought from national and international artists.

Milton Keynes Council is financially supporting the project.

Its leader Cllr Sam Crooks said: "I'm delighted that the city will be creating more and more of things every city would be expecting to have - this, the university, the East-West Rail Link. One of the things that worries me is that we have no central point, like Trafalgar Square. We want it to be iconic, dramatic and thought-provoking."