Bletchley is a small town that pre-dates Milton Keynes and looks quite different to the areas already mentioned. Housing is a mix of old Victorian housing and more modern estates. Bletchley has a reasonable selection of shops, lots of bargain basement and second-hand shops, a variety of take-aways and restaurants, a leisure centre (with swimming pool), a museum (about the Enigma decoding machine from World War II.), a library, and several pubs. You can also find branches of Tesco, Sainsbury, LIDL, Iceland, Farmfoods and Matalan, plus a market in Queensway on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It is only 15-20 minutes cycle ride from the OU and is the area of MK best served by buses (there is a direct bus between Bletchley and the OU which takes 10 minutes but runs a very restricted service – otherwise you can take a bus to the hospital and walk the rest of the way). The town also has its very own, well-served railway station that links it directly to London, Birmingham and Bedford. Bletchley has a wide selection of housing that is relatively cheap to live in (approximately £400-£475 a month for a two-bedroom place).
A note about the Lakes Estate : this estate is bounded by fields to the south, by the Leighton Buzzard road to the east, to the west by the main west coast railway line and to the north by Water Eaton Lane. It’s another area where the rents are low. But if you are considering living here, visit the property in person both during the day and at night before deciding if it’s the kind of place you’d like to live.