Millbrook Proving Ground, in central Bedfordshire, is marking its 50th anniversary this year. Motoring journalist Andrew Frankel said the site was an “indispensable asset”. Its rural location was paramount to the companies developing cars and using it, Mr Burns said. “We are ahead of the game for testing autonomous vehicles,” Mr Burns said. Mr Frankel, from DriveNation, an Instagram car magazine, said: “Millbrook was then and remains today the only place in the UK where road cars can sustain near maximum velocity, providing vital data for anyone from a chassis engineer to a road tester from a car magazine.

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