Stevenage 75th anniversary magazine | biz4Biz - Magazine - Page 21
“the label ‘new town’ can be contentious
– not least as Stevenage ceased to
be managed by a Development
Corporation over 40 years ago, more
than half its ‘official’ lifetime.”
and hamlets. The Queen formally
opened the new pedestrian-only town
centre, another Stevenage ‘First’. The
Development Corporation decided to
encourage parents of residents to move
up to Stevenage from London. The
coming of grandparents truly marked
Stevenage as a proper community and
civic centre all its own.
In the 1960s and 1970s the town centre
became the true beating heart of
Stevenage. Shopping and leisure facilities
were truly state-of-the-art, and amongst
the best in Hertfordshire and nationally.
Stevenage’s youth facilities reflected the
affluent youth culture of the ‘Swinging
Sixties’ and early 1970s.
The early pioneers turned their attention
to campaigning for better facilities for
children and young people, including
adventure play. Parents supported their
children into a full variety of sports and
arts, dominated perhaps inevitably by
football. In time Stevenage as a nursery of
sporting and artistic talent would produce
many top-class sportspeople and artists.
Towards the end of the 1970s the
transition of power and authority from
the Development Corporation to the
Borough Council was marked by a scaling
up of Council staff to take on the task
of managing the town, now well over
70,000 in population and seeking to grow
to 80,000 under its own steam rather
than through immigration. A campaign
and Private Member’s Bill to secure a
Garden City style deal and take on the
commercial assets was dashed by the new
Conservative Government of Margaret
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