Universal Great Britain

[BBPH]

Personally I’m more likely to visit London than Cuba, despite both requiring a passport, but your analogy is noted.

I feel like people go to London. Like, we’ve discussed how that’s a place people come to from all over the world. And this isnt too far from London. Am I wrong?

Incredibly easy to get to from London, as an example I travel from north to south London for work and this takes 75 - 90 mins.

Central london to this park will likely be half of that.


EDIT: Closer to half of that…

 

[Chessy]

From my understanding they’re building this park to get new clients no to make current clients their travel easier, then having to have a passport to get to a park is pretty annoying. This is like EuropaPark wanting to export their park to US and building it in Cuba it would not make sense. From my point of view it’s that Universal is aiming UK citizens mainly and get some 30% from rest of Europe. They have made their market study and I’m sure that would work with mainly UK people. And the place where this park is build is perfect to get as many brits as posible, not to get Europeans on train or car. But it’s a perfectly fine strategy.

You do know you needed a passport to travel to the UK, even when it was a part of the EU. So nothing has changed in that respect.

I feel some people are making an argument based from a political standpoint. That the UK no longer being a part of the political entity known as the European Union, somehow affects this project.

 

[xtpower]

You do know you needed a passport to travel to the UK, even when it is was a part of the EU. So nothing has changed in that respect.

I feel some people are making an argument based from a political standpoint. That the UK no longer being a part of the political entity known as the European Union, somehow affects this project.

Apparently even though you need a passport to visit every other Universal Park, it's only this potential park that is having the passport problem be raised. I don't even know if it's just because of a natural pessimism because the UK never gets Parks like this or that some people are just salty that their fave Park or country or whatever isn't getting a fully-fledged Universal Park with all it's bells and whistles.

The pessimism I can understand, the London Resort basically tainted the whole idea of a DLP/Universal level Park arriving to British shores. Which wasn't helped with numerous failed attempts over the decades. So I can empathise with people who feel us optimistic posters are just increasing the hope and expectation, only for it to be cruelley taken from us at the last minute.

But this just feels different, the location is about as ideal as you can, land was bought, Universal has stated they intend to build a Park here (unless it's untenable) and there's been no sign of anything that could scupper their plans from the local council and inhabitants. Hell, it's being built on a brownfield site that means there's no random endangered insects to worry about either.

As for the salty members, they might still get their wish in the future. PAV could still be taken over by Universal, or they might build another Park, you never know.

 

[Alicia]

Apparently even though you need a passport to visit every other Universal Park, it's only this potential park that is having the passport problem be raised. I don't even know if it's just because of a natural pessimism because the UK never gets Parks like this or that some people are just salty that their fave Park or country or whatever isn't getting a fully-fledged Universal Park with all it's bells and whistles.

The pessimism I can understand, the London Resort basically tainted the whole idea of a DLP/Universal level Park arriving to British shores. Which wasn't helped with numerous failed attempts over the decades. So I can empathise with people who feel us optimistic posters are just increasing the hope and expectation, only for it to be cruelley taken from us at the last minute.

But this just feels different, the location is about as ideal as you can, land was bought, Universal has stated they intend to build a Park here (unless it's untenable) and there's been no sign of anything that could scupper their plans from the local council and inhabitants. Hell, it's being built on a brownfield site that means there's no random endangered insects to worry about either.

As for the salty members, they might still get their wish in the future. PAV could still be taken over by Universal, or they might build another Park, you never know.

Agreed. No use arguing with it anymore. Some folks are just never going to be optimistic.

No matter what happens, this is such an exciting situation, and I don’t want to feel bad about being happy about it so far.

 

[Calmix]

You do know you needed a passport to travel to the UK, even when it is was a part of the EU. So nothing has changed in that respect.

I feel some people are making an argument based from a political standpoint. That the UK no longer being a part of the political entity known as the European Union, somehow affects this project.

You are not right, before Covid all my travels to UK were without passport, and I had no problem.

I feel that you see politics where are not, I don’t care EU o UK, but as a father if I get a last moment offer I can’t go, and the only way to reach it would be by plain, maybe you are a brit and used to take planes to go everywhere and get your passports of your family up to date, but not my case and the majority of people that I Know, and this is only one inconvenient for mainland Europeans would find.
I repeat this park aims brits in its majority and is not something bad it would succeed.

And to give you more info about me, I’ve crisscross GB and I find it fascinating and beautiful, and I found amazing people all around UK specially in the countryside and Scotland, is not political It’s my view.

 

[tommyhawkins]

You are not right, before Covid all my travels to UK were without passport, and I had no problem.

I feel that you see politics where are not, I don’t care EU o UK, but as a father if I get a last moment offer I can’t go, and the only way to reach it would be by plain, maybe you are a brit and used to take planes to go everywhere and get your passports of your family up to date, but not my case and the majority of people that I Know, and this is only one inconvenient for mainland Europeans would find.
I repeat this park aims brits in its majority and is not something bad it would succeed.

And to give you more info about me, I’ve crisscross GB and I find it fascinating and beautiful, and I found amazing people all around UK specially in the countryside and Scotland, is not political It’s my view.

The vast majority of Brits are pissed off about the way Brexit has impacted our daily lives, and we can write paragraphs about it has made life difficult for both sides of the English channel. But using feelings and conjecture to write off a clearly very well thought out plan is the definition of close mindedness and rhetoric.
The fact is that numbers of visitors to London have been drastically recovering back to the levels of 2019, which were 21m visitors per year, and 54% of those visits were Europeans. Even if Brexit had barred all EU visitors from ever setting foot on UK soil that's still 9.6m visitors a year on top of 67m Brits, that's a market of 77million people. Only EU Europeans haven't been banned, so adding those numbers back gives market of 88million people. If they went for just 10% of that they would get 8.8m visitors a year. Why are we repeatedly having the same conversation that this park won't do that well?

 

[randompixel]

Heathrow is still a massive hub airport: globally 4th by number of seats.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

Without knowing all the politics, transportation, or weather entirely to the fullest extent…

A lot of these arguments seem just really stupid and like we are grasping at straws for certain topics. All rumors currently lead, and are essentially confirmed, by the company that this is a full fledged Universal theme park. A major company doesn’t get this far and have a big ol’ “whoops!” in terms of knowing how and which guests can get here. It just wouldn’t happen as much as I doubt the good in capitalism.

While the market isn’t quite tested here yet for a park like this, it’s going into one of the major markets in the world. I suspect this will be a success. Whether it’s major, solid, or roaring success we are yet to see.

 

[Legacy]

Regardless of where, Universal has an incentive to get ANY theme park up and running in Europe by 2030 for the World Cup. While Spain would be ideal in that regard, England would still attract.

 

[pbin]

First post here - I’m very familiar with the area as I grew up there, and my grandfather actually worked at the Brickworks some time ago! Most locals are flabbergasted that they would decide to buy land to build a park here, but it does make sense. The A421 offers great connections to Milton Keynes, the M1, the A1 (two major road ways), and soon the A428 with a connection to Cambridge and further east. The Midland Mainline provides train connections with commuter rail and potentially regional rail - with trains that stop at London St Pancras International (for services to mainland Europe), London Luton and Gatwick Airports. Another important connection is at Farringdon, with the Elizabeth line (the highest trafficked railway in the country). The East-West Rail project should connect Bedford to Oxford and later Cambridge. Both of these train lines will have stations bordering the land (Kempston Hardwick exists already, although optimised for local traffic and Wixams station is to be built this decade), and will probably be upgraded to cope with a higher capacity. The park has great transit connections without much work, and I think the transport network can be utilised really well here. The North-South and East-West connections should be great by 2030.

 

[randompixel]

Picture the scene: It’s a snowy Christmas Eve, 2030, at King’s Cross station. Dozens of families from across the UK and Europe gather as the station speakers announce: “The train now leaving platform 9¾ is the Hogwarts Express, calling at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. And Bedford.”

The stuff of JK Rowling’s fiction? Perhaps not.

For, if all goes to plan, a featureless 480 acres of industrial and agricultural land a short broomstick’s ride from downtown Bedford will, by the end of the decade, become one of the world’s most spectacular theme parks.

Thanks to some impressive sleuthing by international theme park fanatics, it emerged last week that Universal Studios, owned by the giant Comcast corporation, has been quietly buying up land with a view to developing a theme park and resort on a par with its wildly successful Universal Orlando and Hollywood sites

The company has been desperately trying to damp down speculation about its Bedfordshire plans, insisting it was months away from deciding whether to press on with investing the billions of dollars such a project would cost. “Sometimes,” a source there insisted, “We buy land speculatively but decide against it after our appraisal process.”

Late last week, Universal began the delicate process of engaging with local organisations, mailshotting homes and businesses in the area.

It appears to have done a fair bit of preparation already. Manor Road, a quiet, part-residential road in the village of Kempston Hardwick, bisects the Universal property and has a dozen houses on it.

When asked about the Universal deal, one resident said they had signed a non-disclosure agreement and could not discuss their opinion of the development.

According to neighbours, that house and four others had been sold recently for prices above the market rate.

In reality, though, beside a short-lived Universal venture with a pre-existing Spanish park called PortAventura in the noughties, examples of such mothballed projects are hard to find. And it is understood that the Bedford plot is the only one that Universal owns across all of Europe.

“Look at Universal’s history,” says an admiring rival. “They are going to go, and go big, for sure. Fewer, bigger, better. That is the playbook of Universal.”

It is hard to overstate how important, and how highly regarded, Universal’s theme park business is for Comcast. In just July, August and September, it produced some $983 million (£774 million) of profit — up 20 per cent on a year earlier, on revenues of $2.4 billion marking a new record.

Sources at the company in the US suggest that the plan would be to model the UK site on Universal Epic Universe, a 700-acre site under construction at the Universal Orlando resort. Epic Universe was delayed by Covid, but will feature a mixture of “worlds” — perhaps based on Harry Potter, Super Nintendo and How to Train Your Dragon as well as hotels.

Universal is not limited to using only its own movie characters. A source stressed that it was open to buying in others from rival producers if it felt they would be more popular to a European audience.

However, one veteran park operator said it would be “insane” if it did not use its rights to the Harry Potter ride franchise. The Hogwarts-themed attractions are said to have single-handedly saved the Orlando park because the books and movies are so popular.

One problem: 35 miles down the M1 from Bedford is the Harry Potter Studio Tour, owned by Universal’s arch rival Warner Bros. Under a complex split of the Harry Potter concept, Universal has the rights to theme parks and rides, Warner to anything film and studio related.

The studios tour is massively successful, but some experts question what the impact would be of having a theme park so close by. Would Universal cannibalise from Warner Bros, or vice versa?

One rival in the US said: “Universal don’t really have a choice. Only Harry Potter has the draw to bring the visitor numbers they need. Besides, Harry Potter in England, the home of Harry Potter, they’ve got to do it!”

Warner Bros will not be the only nearby leisure operator looking over its shoulder at Universal’s plans. Woburn Safari Park, Center Parcs, Warwick Castle and, farther afield, Alton Towers to the north and Legoland to the south will also feel the competition.

However, Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, was confident that the market could easily cater for the newcomer. “The boost from such a site to the local and national economy would be enormous. Not only would the retail sector benefit, but given the UK’s strong creative industry, a Universal Studios in Bedford would also bring in skilled jobs.”

The new Epic Universe is expected to employ 14,000 workers. While it is bigger than the Bedford plan, the UK jobs boost would also number in the multiple thousands, not to mention the construction workers it would employ during the years it would take to build.

Back in Kempston Hardwick, Claudia Pixley, 44, an estate agent and landlord, who also lives on Manor Road, has not sold. She lives with her partner and four-year-old daughter in her three-bed “forever home”.

Her spacious garden backs onto fields. “We haven’t been approached yet but there’s no way we could stay here if they put rollercoasters effectively in my back garden. I can’t go from waking up with the birds singing to ‘scream if you want to go faster’,” Pixley said.

She was furious to hear about the project through the media and says she will be contacting Mohammad Yasin, the Labour MP for Bedford, in the new year. Yasin, though, has already welcomed the project.

Nathan Quigley, a builder who grew up in Bedford, has lived on the street for 25 years and raised his three daughters there. He feels very differently: “Bedford needs this, England needs this,” he said. He predicted that he would sell his house for “close to a million” to Universal and take his daughters to the theme park in 2030.

It is understood no transactions have yet been completed, although the direction of travel seems set. But nothing can be guaranteed in Britain’s notoriously finickity and slow planning world.

Lee Melville, chairman of Stewartby and Kempston Hardwick parish council, said the councillors had no prior warning about Universal’s plans and were “shocked and concerned” by the news. “It’s a great opportunity for Bedford, but only if the infrastructure is put in place to support it,” he said.

But why choose this semi-rural spot near Bedford for Universal’s European flagship? The site Universal has bought is partially brownfield and bracketed by industrial and retail estates, as well as agricultural land. There had been rumours in the leisure industry that it was looking at a seaside spot near Blackpool or buying back into the PortAventura complex.

Alternatives on its hunt for locations will have probably included the Ruhr area of Germany, home to several big tourist parks, and farther south in the country, where the giant Europa-Park’s 13 rollercoasters attract some 5.4 million visitors a year.

“These locations are amazing,” said one leisure chief operating a site there. “You have all the local big population cities of Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen and nearby Dusseldorf. But you’re also within easy travelling distance of the big populations of west and eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the rest of the mainland.”

Yet of all the sites it could have chosen to line up in its portfolio alongside Orlando, Hollywood, Osaka and Beijing, Universal chose Bedford.

Experts said it was all about access to middle class families — ABC1s, in the marketing jargon. One operator compared the potential Bedford park with Universal Beijing, opened in 2021: “They invested about $5 billion to build Beijing. To make that kind of investment stack up, you have to be attracting six to seven million visits a year, paying high prices.”

To put that in context, Alton Towers hosts about three million, and Legoland Windsor about 2.5 million in a typical year.
The financials of major resorts are also based on the idea that visitors will stay over in the park’s hotels for a few nights, adding to the need to maximise the hinterland of wealthy potential customers.

The beauty of Bedford, experts said, is that it is both well situated for major road and rail routes for well-off families in London and southeast England. By road, it is easily accessible via the M1, while it has good rail links to London and Europe via the Thameslink line from Harry Potter’s favourite station, Kings Cross, next to the St Pancras Eurostar terminal.

Universal’s location scouts also point out that it will also be well-served by the planned £5 billion East-West Rail upgrade, boosting services on the line between Cambridge and Oxford and linking to East Anglia, central, southern and western England. Added to which, the land it has bought includes a large former brickworks, built after the Second World War. That suggests the planning process is less likely to be held up or blocked by environmental concerns.

Universal’s plan seems built on far firmer foundations, and it knows the UK is becoming a major outpost for Hollywood industries. After all, with its sister company Sky, it recently built the Sky Studios complex in Elstree where the movie version of Wicked is currently being filmed.

Jim Armitage and Oliver Gill | Graphics by Julian Osbaldstone
Sunday December 24 2023, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times

Please delete if you don't allow newspaper articles here but hadn't seen it shared. All the articles I've seen so far seem fairly balanced between NIMBY and YIMBY. I thought the resident NDAs were interesting.

 

[pbin]

Please delete if you don't allow newspaper articles here but hadn't seen it shared. All the articles I've seen so far seem fairly balanced between NIMBY and YIMBY. I thought the resident NDAs were interesting.

(I’m being pedantic but) it seems like they didn’t do their research on the train front, Bedford has no connection to King’s Cross station, it’s St Pancras where trains depart from. It would be funny if they just call the two station complex King’s Cross St Pancras (as the Underground does already).

With that said though, it is interesting to hear about the NDAs and how the communities of Stewartby/Kempston Hardwick feel. It probably would’ve been a while before they would’ve heard anything about the park had the rumours not circulated - and it’s understandable that some of them are annoyed as it hadn’t been communicated directly from Universal at first.

 

[LukiLu]

Either that or it's just homeowners trying to mark up prices for their houses and local politicians trying to blackmail infrastructure investment into the area.

 

[ZeroSight]

First post here - I’m very familiar with the area as I grew up there, and my grandfather actually worked at the Brickworks some time ago! Most locals are flabbergasted that they would decide to buy land to build a park here, but it does make sense. The A421 offers great connections to Milton Keynes, the M1, the A1 (two major road ways), and soon the A428 with a connection to Cambridge and further east. The Midland Mainline provides train connections with commuter rail and potentially regional rail - with trains that stop at London St Pancras International (for services to mainland Europe), London Luton and Gatwick Airports. Another important connection is at Farringdon, with the Elizabeth line (the highest trafficked railway in the country). The East-West Rail project should connect Bedford to Oxford and later Cambridge. Both of these train lines will have stations bordering the land (Kempston Hardwick exists already, although optimised for local traffic and Wixams station is to be built this decade), and will probably be upgraded to cope with a higher capacity. The park has great transit connections without much work, and I think the transport network can be utilised really well here. The North-South and East-West connections should be great by 2030.

It really is well connected. Additionally you also have another two main lines not far to the east and west. Stopping at Sandy and also Milton Keynes. So basically 3 main lines from London and also from the North within 25mins.

 

[xtpower]

That was a good article. Two points, Potter is not a must-have (though I'd love it if they used the Potter IP) to attract visitors, you could use the Lord of the Rings IP and would probably have a bigger impact globally. There's multiple Potter themed attractions out there, outside of New Zealand specific tourists traps, who has a LOTR themed attraction? It would be a HUGE get for UGB.

Secondly I'm not overly bothered by the opinion of someone like the homeowner who doesn't want UGB. You'll always find someone who doesn't want something to be built in their backyard, it doesn't matter how united people are in wanting something, there's always one person who fiercely objects.

 

[tommyhawkins]

(I’m being pedantic but) it seems like they didn’t do their research on the train front, Bedford has no connection to King’s Cross station, it’s St Pancras where trains depart from. It would be funny if they just call the two station complex King’s Cross St Pancras (as the Underground does already).

With that said though, it is interesting to hear about the NDAs and how the communities of Stewartby/Kempston Hardwick feel. It probably would’ve been a while before they would’ve heard anything about the park had the rumours not circulated - and it’s understandable that some of them are annoyed as it hadn’t been communicated directly from Universal at first.

There is literally no difference between Kings Cross & St Pancras since they merged then , the same can be said for Euston as the only thing of note between the three of them is my dentists, they are literally 4 blocks apart

 

[Calmix]

The vast majority of Brits are pissed off about the way Brexit has impacted our daily lives, and we can write paragraphs about it has made life difficult for both sides of the English channel. But using feelings and conjecture to write off a clearly very well thought out plan is the definition of close mindedness and rhetoric.
The fact is that numbers of visitors to London have been drastically recovering back to the levels of 2019, which were 21m visitors per year, and 54% of those visits were Europeans. Even if Brexit had barred all EU visitors from ever setting foot on UK soil that's still 9.6m visitors a year on top of 67m Brits, that's a market of 77million people. Only EU Europeans haven't been banned, so adding those numbers back gives market of 88million people. If they went for just 10% of that they would get 8.8m visitors a year. Why are we repeatedly having the same conversation that this park won't do that well?

Have you read my posts? I’m saying what you are saying and only want it to express my opinion on why Universal is choosing that location, I could be wrong? fore sure the most plausible is yes it’s only my opinion. But I a can see that politics does not let you see the forest, lets enjoy together this great news and watch how it’s built. Have nice day.

 

[pbin]

There is literally no difference between Kings Cross & St Pancras since they merged then , the same can be said for Euston as the only thing of note between the three of them is my dentists, they are literally 4 blocks apart

Yeah there isn’t really isn’t much between them, just found it funny because the article opens up with a theoretical scenario that isn’t really accurate.

 

[BBPH]

Yeah there isn’t really isn’t much between them, just found it funny because the article opens up with a theoretical scenario that isn’t really accurate.

FWIW, for our across the pond friends and one last touch on it;

King's Cross is a train station.
St. Pancras is a train station.
King's Cross St. Pancras is an Underground station for the both of them.

99% of people who have traveled through there would consider it all just one station.

You can enter the underground from both of them and they are literally separated by one very small road.

Love a bit of train chat.

 

[Jake S]

Love a bit of train chat.

Nothing better than some Boxing Day train chat.