Plans for a new supermarket and drive-thru restaurant on an abandoned former Park and Ride site in High Wycombe are “progressing behind the scenes”, it has been revealed – nearly a year after they were first discussed.

The empty 8.5-acre Cressex Island site, next door to Costa and Next, was once due to become a Costco – prompting excitement from residents – but disappointingly, the cash and carry giant U-turned on the plans, leaving it empty and derelict.

But in March last year, Wycombe District Council (WDC) revealed fresh plans for the site – with visions of another Aldi supermarket plus a drive-thru McDonald’s restaurant.

Since then, not much has been made public about the plans – but this week, a WDC spokesman confirmed that “progress continues behind the scenes” although they cannot reveal any more details just yet.

The update comes as the shadow executive of the new Buckinghamshire Council – which will replace WDC and the other district and the county council - discussed the plans.

What exactly they discussed remains a secret as the meeting was held in private on February 18, but councillors were asked to ratify WDC cabinet’s approval of the development of part of Cressex Island.

They were also asked the agree to dispose the rest of the site on a freehold basis and the implementation of new traffic signals on Crest Road.

If the new supermarket and drive-thru restaurant do go ahead, the A4010 and Crest Road junction will go from a roundabout to a T-junction with traffic signals.

The update on the plans comes just weeks after 600 tonnes of shredded waste was dumped on the derelict site, which used to be a Park and Ride car park.

Investigators from the Environment Agency are probing the industrial scale fly-tip, which happened overnight on January 29 and 30.

CCTV shows that an earth barrier around the disused site was dug into by a digger just before 6pm on Wednesday, January 29 - with as many as 30 lorry-loads of waste dumped over the course of the next nine hours.

A constant stream of vehicles were seen dropping loads until 3.30am while a man acted as a look-out in Crest Road.

A WDC spokesman said: “We have installed solid concrete barriers at the island. In addition, we are returning to the High Court in April to have the council’s Interim Injunction made final. This enables us to evict unauthorised occupiers within 24 hours.”