Milton Keynes Council

Councillors in Milton Keynes will decide whether the town should bid to become the European City of Sport in 2020 at a meeting this evening.

The title is given to one UK city annually which is "aware that sport is a factor of aggregation of the society, improvement in the quality of life, psycho-physical well-being and complete integration within social classes in the community".

Milton Keynes Council has recommended that approval be granted for the council to bid for the status.

As part of the process, the council plans to commit £20,000 for the bidding process in 2018-19 and a further £130,000 through to 2021-22 for delivery of the project if successful.

Families whose children live at a care home in Milton Keynes are considering legal action to block its closure.

The Walnuts Children's Home is run by Milton Keynes Council, which is considering shutting the facility from next September. A consultation on the plans is due to end this Friday.

Five boys with learning difficulties currently live at the home. Lisa's severely autistic and epileptic 15-year-old son Taylor stays at The Walnuts five nights a week.

"We wouldn't be able to cope without the help and support they give us," she said.

"The carers there are like a family to Taylor."

Councillors in Milton Keynes are expected to approve a plan to spend £8m to buy 40 houses to try and tackle the problem of homelessness,

The majority of the properties are located on the seven council estates earmarked for regeneration.

The decision will be voted on at a Delegated Decisions meeting this evening.

Last year the council bought 41 properties with the aim of reducing the number of homeless people in temporary accommodation in the town.

Milton Keynes Council is promising to deal with more than 2,000 privately-owned empty properties.

The Labour group has described the situation as "appalling" given there are 600 homeless families in temporary accommodation in the town.

The empty properties include more than 220 in Bletchley, 200 in central Milton Keynes and 95 in Newport Pagnell. More than 100 have been empty for more than two years.

The proposed Empty Homes Strategy will include a range of measures including incentives, enforcement and purchasing empty properties.

Milton Keynes Council is under no overall control but Labour's Pete Marland is leader of the council.

Milton Keynes Council has said it wants to take control of a multi-million pound regeneration scheme of seven estates in the new city.

The £1bn project was started in April 2017 and described as community-led from the beginning.

The council said Your MK, the organisation leading the project, "has not been as community-focused as it needed to be".

Your MK

The Labour minority administration has apologised for how the project has gone so far, saying that engagement on the Fullers Slade and North Bradville Estates will have to restart.

The Tory opposition said it had concerns about whether the changes will make a difference, but they are expected to get cross-party support at a meeting next week.

A Buckinghamshire music venue founded by Dame Cleo Laine and her late husband Sir John Dankworth says its future is threatened by a new housing development on its doorstep.

The Stables at Wavendon says a proposal to build three story flats near their front entrance could lead to their closure.

Monica Ferguson, its chief executive and artistic director, told the BBC: "If any of the residents moving in to the property just 12 metres from our boundary consider [the music] to be a nuisance, you can only imagine the licensing constraints which will be applied, simply making it impossible to continue both our extensive concert programme and our learning and participation programme on this site."

The Stables

A spokesman for Milton Keynes Borough Council said: "No decision has yet been taken on this planning application. People still have until 5 July to comment, when the consultation on this application ends."