Station Square is named twice on BALI's 2026 National Award winners list, for soft landscaping and regeneration. The top prize in each is decided on 4 December.

The rebuilt Station Square appears twice on the British Association of Landscape Industries’ list of National Award winners for 2026.

Both entries read “Frosts Landscape Construction for Milton Keynes Station Square”. They sit in two separate categories:

  • Soft Landscaping Construction (non-domestic), over £500K
  • Regeneration Scheme, over £500K

That is the square outside Milton Keynes Central, the first thing most visitors to the city see. It was rebuilt by Milton Keynes Development Partnership and the city council, and reopened with a new artwork in October 2025.

The bigger prizes are still open

A National Award is not the same thing as winning the category, and this matters for anyone following it. BALI names several National Award winners in each class. Station Square is one of four in the soft landscaping category, alongside Stockton Waterfront, Armada Way in Plymouth and the Queen Elizabeth II Garden. It is one of three in the regeneration category.

The category winners come later. BALI says its National Award winners will gather at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House Hotel in London on 4 December, “when the Principal Awards, Special Awards and Grand Award will also be announced”. The awards are in their 50th year, and BALI reports entries were up on last year.

So Station Square has two national awards now, and is still in the running for more in December.

Who built it

Frosts is not a Milton Keynes company, though it is close enough to be a neighbour.

Companies House records Frosts Landscape Construction Limited, company number 01178400, incorporated on 23 July 1974. Its registered office is Liscombe Central, Liscombe Park, Soulbury, Leighton Buzzard, LU7 0JL. Soulbury is a Buckinghamshire village about nine miles south-west of central Milton Keynes, and sits outside the city council’s area.

The firm has been trading for 52 years. On its own account it holds well over 80 BALI awards, including the Grand Prize in 2015 for Merchant Square.

What was actually built

The scheme was commissioned by Milton Keynes Development Partnership, the council-owned company that holds and develops city-centre land, with Milton Keynes City Council.

The centrepiece is ‘Walk With Your Dreams’ by the British-Nigerian artist and designer Yinka Ilori MBE. It is built into the flooring of the square rather than standing on it. The council’s announcement of the commission sets out where the design came from: the symmetry of the city’s grid system, interpreted through patterns made by Àdìrẹ, a traditional Yoruba dyeing technique.

It has a practical job as well as a decorative one. The council states that guiding people arriving at the station towards the two underpasses into the city centre “was an important part of MKDP’s brief”.

The planting is the other half, and it is the half that won the soft landscaping award. MKDP chose species “for their aesthetic appeal, biodiversity benefit, and low-maintenance requirements”.

The artwork opened on 2 October 2025, with performances between 4pm and 7.30pm and an unveiling at 4.30pm. The council says it will stay in place for several years, maintained by MKDP funding and Section 106 public art contributions from development in the city.

Nicola Sawford, chair of MKDP, said at the time that the design “gives Station Square the boost it needs to become a welcoming, vibrant and memorable space”, and linked it to plans for a live entertainment and events venue at the Old Bus Station.

What we could not confirm

The total cost of the Station Square works is not published in any of the council or MKDP material we could reach. Both BALI categories are for schemes over £500,000, which puts a floor under it but no ceiling.

Neither Milton Keynes City Council nor MKDP had published anything about the awards on their own news pages when this was written. The award itself is recorded on BALI’s site.

What it means for you

Very little changes on the ground. The square has been finished since October 2025, and this is recognition after the fact rather than a new scheme.

It is worth knowing if you are meeting someone off a train, or arriving in the city for the first time. The two underpasses at the far side of the square are the route into the shopping centre and the city core, and the artwork is laid out to point you at them. Our train times page covers services from the station itself, and parking in Milton Keynes explains the colour-coded bay system you will meet if you drive to meet a train instead.

Sources