Thousands of families have nowhere to buy basic groceries and essentials on one of Milton Keynes' biggest estates

People living on one of MK’s biggest new estates are still waiting for their shops to be built, five years after many of them moved in.

Residents at Whitehouse Park, which is earmarked for 6,500 new homes, were promised a mini high street with a pub, supermarket and retail units.

But years on, there is still nowhere they can buy even basic groceries such as bread or milk. All they have is a chemist and a coffee shop, and they have to travel to nearby towns for shopping.

To make matters worse, families on neighbouring estate Fairfields are also waiting for their shops to be built. Both estates are part of the huge Western Expansion area for MK.

"We are living on an estate with absolutely woeful amenities,” said one Whitehouse Park resident this week. “It’s a shocking example of planning and organisation for a city hoping to expand and attract people.”

Another resident said: “Access to basic essentials such as bread and milk is surely a bare minimum for any residential area of any size and even more so one which is so big.”

"There are more than enough residents to warrant such a basic amenity and with no sign of anything being installed any time soon, the reality is that people are moving into areas and spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on property that sits on land that offers no access to the usual basic facilities one would expect as a bare minimum.”

The Citizen reported almost a year ago on the plight of Whitehouse Park residents. At the time, a spokesman for the developers, L& Q, said: "We are working with our partners Milton Keynes Council on designs for the High Street. Once they are agreed we will progress detailed designs and layouts, and all parties are keen to move things forward.”

This week we asked both L&Q and the council what progress had actually been made over the past year.

The L&Q spokesman said: “We have been working closely with the local authority preparing The Design Code for approval.”

But she added: “The amenities to be provided can only be delivered when the proper commercial environment exists to make them viable. We are clear with our ambition to deliver a thriving High Street but at the same time we need to ensure all the delivery circumstances are correct.

“We have delivered the infrastructure in advance to service the retail area.”

Meanwhile, it seems detailed proposals for the Whitehouse shops have not yet even been submitted to MK City Council.

A council spokesman told the Citizen this week: “We remain in contact with L&Q regarding this and are encouraging them to bring forward detailed proposals.”

He pointed out that it is not the council’s responsibility to deliver “commercial elements” of the scheme.

The good news is that things are moving at last for Fairfields residents. Planning permission was granted two months ago for a local centre with a “large convenience store” and a café to be built on Apollo Avenue and work will start shortly.