Universal Great Britain

[yepthatguy]

Looking forward to that, as the hatched area and why it appeared that Universal hadn't bought that plot of land has always puzzled me.

It’s puzzled me too. I had a look into it and found some things. I’m always interested in others thoughts.

I went to this website.

https://search-property-information.service.gov.uk/search/search-by-map/

And put in this postcode.

MK439NE

Then moved over to what I think is the red hatched land on Universals 2024 Spring Boards map outline, and zoomed in, which showed “Randalls Farm Environmental Education Centre”.

I looked that up and found this web page.

Randalls Farm Environmental Education Centre, Stewartby - Running Costs - Entrust

These are the approximate figures; Ground works £15,000 Rent & Rates £20,257 Salaries £62,659 Education Programme £5,709 Training £125 Contingency £1,250 Shanks First Fund will be contributing £100,000 towards the project. This is a continuation of funding to an ongoing LTCS project (Entrust...

www.entrust.org.uk

More about Entrust here.

About Entrust - Entrust

We regulate the Landfill Communities Fund (LCF) to ensure effective use of contributions for environmental and community projects.

www.entrust.org.uk

After this I can conclude I am now more puzzled than before.

Apologies as always if I’m imaging this. It almost looks like a secret government environmental police dark site.

This is just getting more awesome every day!!!

 

[rob@rar]

Apologies as always if I’m imaging this. It almost looks like a secret government environmental police dark site.

This is just getting more awesome every day!!!

 

[EllieB]

Entrust administer grants from the Landfill Communities Trust, which is where many of the landfill operators in the UK (e.g: Biffa) provide grants for heritage, educational and environmental projects to offset their negative impact on the environment. I've been involved in projects that have had Biffa Award funding before.

Randall's Farm seems to be an adult education centre, not currently operating though. It was operated by the Wildlife Trust I think.

 

[ZeroSight]

I think you are 100% correct. You would be very welcome. People want to visit London anyway, what not sweeten the pot with something familiar but new from home. Also think with Stansted airport expansion happening there is a strong chance a long haul airline will build a Transatlantic base there and it's very easy to get a train to Bedford via Cambridge via EWR line.

What seems to keep getting unnoticed I feel, or not spoken about enough is the direct connection by rail from Gatwick Airport to Bedford (but will stop at Wixams when built) via Thameslink. Off the top of my head British Airways & Norse fly direct to Gatwick from Orlando. Easy for our Orlando friends to get to the park.

 

[yepthatguy]

That’s correct, it’s possible to go from Bedford Train Station to Gatwick on Thameslink in about 1 hour 45 mins to 2 hours, with regular trains.

From Gatwick, British Airways fly to Orlando MCO.

 

[EllieB]

It's also possible to go from Heathrow to Bedford in a couple of hours, via a few different routes. Still utilising Thameslink for the majority of the journey. Lots of European flights come into Heathrow, as well as flights from America and elsewhere in the world.

 

[Della]

I believe that's one of three SPVs they created for the project, also to date I believe from looking at companies house they have only purchased 476acres, there was discussion on here a few weeks back about where the "150 acres" was located by from what I can see we would be talking about them purchasing the 224 acres West of the site including the area needed for the motorway intersection and bridge/tunnel to cross the railway line, we all assumed from the consultation documents they had already purchased that land but i dont think so (see pic below) conveniently that whole area equates to the 700 Acres expansion option that has been repeatedly spoken of in the newsView attachment 26119

It would be a good idea for Universal to buy this land, because it seems to back right on to the presumed location of the BTTF rollercoaster. Which people have speculated will be very tall, maybe tallest rollercoaster in the UK, and we can see from the concept art that most of it is outside so the screams will carry! Seems a bad idea to build a load of housing right there, where a big rollercoaster will dominate the sky line and be extremely noisy.

What type of ride we thinking Lord of the Rings will see? Lots of different opportunities. You could do a Soarin'-style flight over the Shire, a rapids ride for the barrel scene in Hobbit, or heck have a KUKA arm ride like FJ and Unchained.

I would love something like Journey to the Centre of the Earth at Tokyo Disneysea. An indoor dark ride, starts in a sedate way going through scenes of hobbits and the shire, lots of cool sets and animatronics, before things take a turn and it becomes a thrill ride where you're trying to throw the ring in mount doom (can only vaguely remember the plot), then you succeed and the hobbits rejoice. Kuka arms are definitely fun but not so good for motion sickness. My husband loves LOTR and gets motion sick on Forbidden Journey so just thinking of him! I saw somewhere a rollercoaster design that can also go in water, if we get that then there can be a water section too which would make it unique.

When the Studio Tour first opened, the intention was that it would showcase HP stuff for a few years until interest waned, then pivot to showcasing costumes, sets and props from whatever the next popular franchise they had was. That's why it's officially called the Warner Brothers Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter, not The Harry Potter Studio Tour, despite what people might refer to it as. The fact that they never pivoted away and instead chose to create new areas, themed food spaces, and expand their footprint goes to show I think that they've decided HP is there for the long term, not the short term.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if their next expansion included a dark ride. They already have green screen photo experiences, immersive events (like after hours dining in the great hall) and pseudo-ride experiences (like on the train). I don't know how much space they have to work with on the site, but adding a theatre show or a ride experience of some kind seems the logical next move for them.

I would love the HP studio tour to add rides and hope they do, but I don't think they will, because there would be a huge financial outlay but not much return, as their tickets are permanently sold out already. The sets by themselves are fairly fun to see once but I am not too interested to see how the movies were made, I want to step into the world of HP and feel like it is real like you do in Florida.

 

[Disneyhead]

I would think that Universal would offer WB Studios Tour tickets available in some of their "Vacation Packages".

 

[Parkscope Joe]

What if they created an all-new Potter ride that isn't in Orlando and doesn't cover the big offerings at the WB Tour (Diagon/Hogwarts/Forbidden Forest)?

 

[rob@rar]

Nothing of significance regarding the Universal proposal at tonight's Bedford Council Executive Committee, councillors present expressed great satisfaction that agreement had been reached and the project would move to the next stage. The Mayor reported that the Council was still negotiating with government on the support the Council might require from in terms of expenditure on things like infrastructure. The Mayor also noted that the government had asked the Council to stop all work on Wixams train station development while the plans were revised for a much larger 4-platform station to serve Wixams and Universal. This would save the Council significant amounts of money as the cost of the new larger station would now be borne by national government rather than the Council.

 

[EllieB]

What if they created an all-new Potter ride that isn't in Orlando and doesn't cover the big offerings at the WB Tour (Diagon/Hogwarts/Forbidden Forest)?

I believe the current thinking is that they will not be able to represent Potter with an attraction in the park because of rights issues, as Warner Brothers will not be likely to license anything that may detract from their visitor figures.

 

[masekwm]

Looking forward to that, as the hatched area and why it appeared that Universal hadn't bought that plot of land has always puzzled me.

I ducked the barrier a few weeks back, it seems to have had a recent clear up and there are definitely planning markers on the site, but I've not heard any rumours that it has or is in process of changing hands.

 

[masekwm]

Nothing of significance regarding the Universal proposal at tonight's Bedford Council Executive Committee, councillors present expressed great satisfaction that agreement had been reached and the project would move to the next stage. The Mayor reported that the Council was still negotiating with government on the support the Council might require from in terms of expenditure on things like infrastructure. The Mayor also noted that the government had asked the Council to stop all work on Wixams train station development while the plans were revised for a much larger 4-platform station to serve Wixams and Universal. This would save the Council significant amounts of money as the cost of the new larger station would now be borne by national government rather than the Council.

I've uploaded the relevant bit to YouTube



Wixams appeared to have been stopped by 12 April:

 

[PeaJay]

New BBC article with some nice quotes from Page Thompson. Nothing revolutionary, but an interesting read:
Universal UK: Century-long plans made for Bedford theme park

 

[Della]

New BBC article with some nice quotes from Page Thompson. Nothing revolutionary, but an interesting read:
Universal UK: Century-long plans made for Bedford theme park

Some interesting stuff in there! So they intend to do more than just the park and hotel, and the below quote confirms a 'city walk' type area with restaurants outside the park gates, even though we couldn't see it in the concept art.

- "We have a lot more land that we intend to develop... in ways that bring more people to the area and hopefully is beneficial for everybody. Phase one of this project is the theme park, a 500-room hotel, some restaurants that people can visit without buying a theme park ticket. This is just the start of the development in the Bedford area on our land that we're going to own." (going to own? So implying don't own some of it already?)

- Planning documents would be submitted to the government "in the next couple of months" (as we expected)

- "we won't comment on the specific properties or lands in the park until we get a lot closer to opening." (as we expected)

 

[EllieB]

Sounds like there's hope for my Hunger Games archery yet!

Also interesting that he categorically states this will be Universal's only resort in Europe. A blow for any Port Aventura fans still hoping they might buy that too, I guess.

 

[yepthatguy]

Does this finally confirm the 700 acres?

 

[rob@rar]

Does this finally confirm the 700 acres?

It's very similar to the graphic that Universal published last April. There's no difference in the project perimeter, but the updated graphic in today's BBC article entirely omits the land around the Randall's Farm Environmental Centre, which on the original graphic (see below) was shown in the hatched area. At the time Universal described the land like this:

The Site we are exploring
The extent of our project is shown in red and is approximately 700 acres in size. It includes the approximately 476 acres purchased last year, along with a smaller parcel of land to the southwest, which we have an option to acquire. This parcel of land would allow a direct link between our site and the A421, as well as other local transport routes that could be improved through this project.

 

[Altonsky]

Nothing of significance regarding the Universal proposal at tonight's Bedford Council Executive Committee, councillors present expressed great satisfaction that agreement had been reached and the project would move to the next stage. The Mayor reported that the Council was still negotiating with government on the support the Council might require from in terms of expenditure on things like infrastructure. The Mayor also noted that the government had asked the Council to stop all work on Wixams train station development while the plans were revised for a much larger 4-platform station to serve Wixams and Universal. This would save the Council significant amounts of money as the cost of the new larger station would now be borne by national government rather than the Council.

He also mentioned rumours of Eurostar trains potentially running to the station, if that’s true that’s pretty big news. The station would be huge.

Could we potentially see Eurostar offering their direct service to DLP again so you could go direct from DLP in Paris to Universal in Bedford on one train?

 

[Altonsky]

Some interesting stuff in there! So they intend to do more than just the park and hotel, and the below quote confirms a 'city walk' type area with restaurants outside the park gates, even though we couldn't see it in the concept art.

- "We have a lot more land that we intend to develop... in ways that bring more people to the area and hopefully is beneficial for everybody. Phase one of this project is the theme park, a 500-room hotel, some restaurants that people can visit without buying a theme park ticket. This is just the start of the development in the Bedford area on our land that we're going to own." (going to own? So implying don't own some of it already?)

- Planning documents would be submitted to the government "in the next couple of months" (as we expected)

- "we won't comment on the specific properties or lands in the park until we get a lot closer to opening." (as we expected)

Yeah as expected they want to get the documents in before the summer recess.

But that quote about ‘going to own’ was the first thing I noticed. We know there’s land they have their eye on but is it there more land they intend to purchase.

Also the whole article puts to bed the idea of them opening other European parks, if this is the only Universal park serving Europe why should it not be a multi gate park decades down the line.