‘A very good gadget’: taking delivery from the robots of Milton Keynes

D riving down an endless string of identical roundabouts in the dead heat with hardly a human in sight, you see robots roving around on grassy pavements, whizzing past obstacles to hurriedly reach their final destination. This isn’t a scene from a Philip K Dick novel, however, but an average Thursday in Milton Keynes . The robots aren’t a new arrival to the Buckinghamshire city, the UK’s largest new town and a longtime marvel for city planning enthusiasts fascinated by its American-influenced layout and postwar history. They’ve roamed its streets since 2018 – and could soon be coming to a town or city near you. The short six-wheelers have already been let loose in Wakefield, Leeds and, courtesy of the food delivery firm Just Eats, in Bristol. With murmurs that the government will approve delivery robots for traversal across our pavements nationwide under wider new laws on micromobility vehicles, they could soon become a more familiar sight across the country. Are the robots, designed and operated by the autonomous delivery firm Starship Technologies, and used to cart Co-op orders around the city, popular in Milton Keynes? “It’s a wonderful experience,” says Amrita Singh. The 46-year-old, who works in project management, has seen them “all over the place”, including whizzing around in her local park, and often uses them. “It has proved to be very useful for me, particularly when my husband travels for work and I’m alone with the kids,” she says. …