A guide to living in Bedfordshire

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Willow Grove is a quiet area with green spaces, play grounds and schools nearby. It is great for families with kids and everyone who likes running or cycling or dog walkers. People here are very friendly and stop just to say hello or have a chat. Everyone is very helpful, including posties and delivery drivers. Southern Cross, where we live, is very quiet street right now. The only time you see your neighbours is the morning when we all take our kids to nurseries/schools. Throughout the day you see a few dog walkers and delivery vans. At the weekends there are more families with small kids walking, cycling or spending time in the playgrounds. There is a construction site at the west end of the street, so we expect to be busier in the future, once the new homes are finished and the road opened to connect this part of Wixams to the new Town Centre and railway station. However, the houses on our side of the street have car park along it with a green space in front, so we don't think the traffic will bother us in the future too much. There are no local shops, restaurants, gyms, GP etc. as it is still in development. However, there are approved plans for a Town Centre, which will have all the above. There are 4 schools nearby: Willow Grove Primary School, Wixams Tree Primary & Secondary Academies, Lakeview Primary School. There is no train station at the moment but a new one is being built which will provide service by Thameslink to/from Bedford. This service runs to Luton Airport, St. Pancras International, Gatwick Airport and Brighton. The nearest railway stations are in Bedford and Flitwick, which have facilities for parking cars and bicycles. There is a bus service provided by Stagecoach. Their bus MK1 goes from Bedford via Luton Station and Airport to Milton Keynes and back. There are two bus stops in Wixams: Southern Cross and Dove Lane. However, the service is not frequent, ranges from every 40 minutes to 1 hour. The closest shopping centre is The Interchange Retail Park in Kempston MK42 7AZ. There are: Boots, Superdrug, TK Maxx, The Range, Next, Pets at Home, Dreams, ScS, Nando's, KFC, McDonald's, Burger King, Costa Coffee, M&S Food Hall and a gym. For now, the nearest GP Surgeries are in Kempston. There are 4 of them there.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Our property manager responded quickly to all our queries, comments and issues.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I think we had a very good idea what to expect before moving in, so there is actually only one thing which surprised us. The address of our home is so new that it doesn't exist on Google Maps and other databases used by delivery companies, which causes delay with deliveries or even makes it impossible. We literally had to add our house number to Royal Mail system, because it didn't exist. Local posties know the area very well, so they didn't have problems to find us, but companies using their service couldn't find our address, so they were saying items couldn't be delivered to us. We've been adding the address patiently for the last two weeks and it seems to be better now. Maybe a good solution for the future would be adding new addresses before tenants move in.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Theres loads of shops near (Aldi, Lidl, Asdan Morrisons) , and a huge park for all ages of kids. There is a bus straight to the Station but it only comes once every 30mins or so. Thats the main downside.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Yes they have responded to every request made via the Fixflo website

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

Get ready for loads of spiders. They are everywhere. Also consider how close the links are to the train station of you commute.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Good range of shops, food outlets and a coffee shop. Lovely big open spaces with lots of activities for children

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Yes very quickly and had resolved whenever reported

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

The location of social housing in comparison to our location

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Local area is nice, not too noisy & there are some local shops & pubs very close by. There are quite a few young people with balaclavas on mopeds riding up & down the roads though a couple times a week & the road directly outside our house is fairly busy up to a different development, but the park view opposite is nice. Parking is good, bin collection is good. Young children playing in gardens is quite noisy, especially if you have a window open, but I guess that can’t be helped, it’s just disturbing when they’re screaming with eachother

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

They have responded on the online portal to forwarding to a contractor, but yet to find out a true feel of how well they respond time wise as we only raised issues recently. The time it takes to fix issues will show soon.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I wish I had known this part of the area had a lot of children/adolescents, as I would’ve acted quicker on the other house in a different area had I known. This is personal preference.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

The development itself is lovely. The house is lovely. The location is great. We have shopped next to us so it is great.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

we have raised a few things since moving into this property that wasn’t right from the last tenant but when we raised it, we were advised that they’re not urgent and that they will not address this

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I think the development build a lovely community, but again I wouldn’t have moved in if I knew that simple iPhone not going to fix some things that were wrong with the house