page_title: Stadium MK
section_title: Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium
hierarchical_section_title: Stadium MK / Construction, planning and background / Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo taken by myself of Pete Winkelman following the Milton Keynes Dons Vs. Walsall game on March 25 2011 at Stadium:mk.
context_page_description: Stadium MK is a football ground in the Denbigh district of Bletchley in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Designed by Populous, it is the home ground of EFL League One side Milton Keynes Dons and FA Women's National League South side Milton Keynes Dons Women.
  As of May 2015, the stadium has two tiers which hold a capacity of 30,500. Should it be required, there is the option to increase the capacity of the stadium again to 45,000 with the addition of a third tier, hence the high roof. The design will comply with UEFA's Elite Stadium specifications and includes a Desso GrassMaster playing surface.
  The plans of the complex included an indoor arena, Arena MK, that was to be the home of the Milton Keynes Lions professional basketball team. However, the retail developments that would have provided enabling funding were deferred due to lack of financing, leaving the Lions without a home. Following the conclusion of the 2011–12 season, the Lions could not secure a venue within Milton Keynes, resulting in a move south to the Copper Box.
  In addition to association football, the stadium occasionally hosts rugby union.
context_section_description: From the first days of Milton Keynes as a new town, designated in 1967, the Milton Keynes Development Corporation (1967–1992) envisaged a stadium capable of accommodating a top-flight football team. What would become Stadium MK was first proposed in 2000 by the Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium or "Stadium MK", led by Pete Winkelman and his company Inter MK Group. This consortium proposed a large development in the southern Milton Keynes district of Denbigh North, including a 30,000-capacity football stadium, a 150,000-square-foot (13,935 m²) Asda hypermarket, an IKEA store, a hotel, a conference centre, and a retail park. The plan to build a ground of this size was complicated by the fact that there was no professional football club in Milton Keynes and that the highest-ranked team in the town, Milton Keynes City—based in Wolverton in northern Milton Keynes, and formerly known as Mercedes-Benz F.C.—played in the then eighth-tier Spartan South Midlands League, four divisions below the Football League. The developers could not justify building such a stadium for a club of this small stature.
  Winkelman, an ex-CBS Records executive and music promoter, had moved to the Milton Keynes area from London in 1993. He attested to a vast untapped fanbase for football in Milton Keynes—a "football frenzy waiting to happen", he said. Critics of this claim pointed to the apparent lack of public interest in Milton Keynes City and the other local non-League clubs, and argued that Milton Keynes residents interested specifically in League football already had ample access with Luton Town, Northampton Town and Rushden & Diamonds all within 25 miles (40 km). Winkelman was the only person in Milton Keynes publicly associated with the project; his financial supporters, later revealed to be Asda (a subsidiary of Walmart) and Ikea, were kept strictly anonymous.
  Opponents of such a move surmised that the stadium was a "Trojan Horse" included in the blueprint to bypass planning rules, and that although the consortium described the larger development as enabling the construction of the stadium, the reverse was the case—Winkelman's consortium, they claimed, had to have a professional team in place right away to justify the ground so the development could get planning permission. David Conn of The Guardian corroborated this assessment. "The whole project was indeed dependent on Asda and Ikea," Conn summarised in a 2012 article, after interviewing Winkelman. "Having seen the opportunity to build a stadium Milton Keynes lacked, and realised Asda did not have a store in the town, Winkelman acquired options to buy the land from its three owners, including the council. Asda would not have been granted planning permission for a huge out-of-town superstore unless it gave the council the benefit of building the stadium. A League club would move up, permission would be granted, then Winkelman would exercise the option to buy all the land, sell it to Asda and IKEA for very much more, and the difference would be used to build the stadium." Conn retrospectively described this as the "deal of a lifetime".
caption: Pete Winkelman, who led Inter MK and the Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium, and subsequently became chairman of Milton Keynes Dons F.C. (2011 photograph)
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