IN Brief:
- Graham has started work on the £76.8m Wolverton Agora regeneration in Milton Keynes.
- The scheme will deliver 115 homes, nine retail units, community space, public realm, and road infrastructure works.
- The project links brownfield town-centre regeneration with housing delivery, placemaking, and local infrastructure improvements.
Graham has started construction on the £76.8m Wolverton Agora regeneration in Milton Keynes.
The project is being delivered for Milton Keynes City Council in partnership with developer TOWN, using the Pagabo Major Works Framework. It will replace the demolished Agora Centre and car park with 115 homes, community and commercial space, public realm, and improved local connections.
The residential element includes private and affordable homes across six blocks, with specialist cohousing for older residents included in the wider mix. The scheme will also deliver nine retail units, new public space, reinstated road infrastructure between Radcliffe Street, The Square, and Church Street, and improved walking and cycling routes.
Wolverton has waited several years for the site to move from demolition and planning into visible construction. The former Agora building was demolished in 2023, following long-running efforts to unlock the town-centre site, and the new programme is expected to run towards completion at the end of 2028.
The project brings together several pressures now shaping local construction pipelines. Councils are seeking housing growth, town-centre renewal, active travel, public realm, and better use of brownfield land, while still working within tighter funding and viability constraints.
By procuring through Pagabo’s Major Works Framework, the scheme has moved into construction through a route intended to reduce procurement complexity and give public clients access to established contractor capacity. Framework procurement does not remove delivery risk, but it can create a clearer route from approval to mobilisation where public-sector clients need pace and assurance.
The mix of uses will require careful construction sequencing. Housing, retail, community space, cycle routes, public realm, and road reinstatement each carry different design and delivery requirements, while the town-centre location adds interfaces with businesses, residents, pedestrians, utilities, and highways.
Brownfield regeneration schemes are now expected to deliver more than replacement development. Housing numbers still count, but local authorities are also looking for accessibility, commercial frontage, safer routes, stronger public space, and long-term stewardship. The Wolverton programme has been shaped around that wider place-based brief.
Similar pressures are visible in other urban regeneration plans, including a Derby masterplan bringing homes, public realm, and commercial activity into a city-centre renewal framework. Wolverton is smaller, but its delivery challenge is comparable: rebuilding underused land in a way that improves the surrounding place rather than simply filling a development plot.
For Graham, the project builds on previous residential regeneration work in Milton Keynes, including the Lakes Estate renewal programme. Local delivery experience can help with logistics, stakeholder engagement, and the reporting discipline required on council-backed schemes.
The next phase will test how effectively the project team can manage construction in a live town-centre environment while keeping housing, commercial space, public realm, and infrastructure works aligned. Interfaces between roads, cycle routes, utilities, and building works will need to be managed tightly if the programme is to avoid fragmented delivery.
By the end of the decade, the scheme is intended to turn a long-vacant central site into a more active mixed-use quarter. Its success will depend on more than the completion of the buildings; the renewed street connections, public realm, and local services will determine whether the regeneration functions as part of Wolverton’s town centre rather than as a self-contained development.
