'EastEnders set in Milton Keynes was insulting'

Seeing your hometown featured on TV would usually be a source of pride, but not for Milton Keynes residents who tuned into EastEnders this week.

One child character living there was described in an episode as not being in school and instead was "roaming the estate, carting drugs around, eating out of bins".

EastEnders fans living in Milton Keynes want their voices heard too.

Karl Downey, 28, who has watched EastEnders since he was four years old, said he was excited to see the return of character Bianca Jackson in the two-part special.

But he said he was "disappointed" to see how the show "depicted us".

"Don't get me wrong, as with all towns and cities, Milton Keynes has its nicer and less than savoury areas, but for show producers to decide to film all of Milton Keynes scenes on a rundown council estate in the north London borough of Barnet was a bit insulting."

The self-described "hardcore fan" said the episode "gave Milton Keynes the image of being some ex-communist republic of the 1990s".

Mr Downey said the show could have featured the city's brutalist and modern architecture and green spaces, and joked that it could have included its delivery robots, concrete cows and abundance of roundabouts.

He added: "I will continue watching, but would prefer Milton Keynes to look more like Milton Keynes, and for Walford to look more like the east-end of London."

For 69-year-old EastEnders fan Lene Chilvers, the real drama was her own reaction in her living room.

"I was so angry, I was absolutely disgusted, it's just so rude," she said, in response to the depiction.

"To actually single out a real place and portray it as the awful area they did, with kids running around the streets, drug addicts - the whole episode was so disgusting."

Ms Chilvers has lived in the city for 40 years and hopes other fans of the soap will visit the place for themselves.

She said: "For me it's open and green, it's attractive and it's got everything you need in city.

"I live near Stony Stratford; I love that I can walk from a brand new house into an old town, I've got everything old and new."

Lesley Scott, 70, has lived in the Milton Keynes area for 18 years and said the city "gets a rough deal all the time" and that it actually has "everything you want apart from the sea".

"It's not realistic. Girls eating out of dustbins; that's just typical EastEnders," she commented.

Joan Shaw, who has spent 36 years in Milton Keynes, said: "Quite honestly, I was infuriated and felt very insulted.

"It was so negative and so untrue of Milton Keynes. It is not run down but a beautiful place to live."

She argued the city continued to go from strength to strength with major businesses such as Red Bull, Santander and Volkswagen basing their UK headquarters in the city.

Scenes set in the fictional town of Walford are usually filmed at Elstree Studio in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire - about an hour down the M1 from Milton Keynes.

The BBC press office has declined to comment.