Universal Great Britain

[Wicket The Cat]

Nice week to be at a theme park

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But I thought it rains all the time here!

 

[rob@rar]

Quick update from local MP Mohammad Yasin on his latest meeting with UDX President Page Thompson and the Head and Deputy Head of Universal's government relations team, where they briefed him on progress which he "hopes to share soon". He said the current priority is to prepare the Special Development Order planning application.

Away from the sunny terrace at the Palace of Westminster, the National Planning Inspectorate have accepted Bedford Council's argument that their major development plan for housing and economic development (which has already been several years in the making), basically needs to be scrapped and work started again to take in to account Universal's development. Seems sensible as suddenly introducing a world-class theme park in the middle of your borough is bound to have pretty dramatic effects on all sorts of economic, social, housing and regeneration plans that you might have hoped to develop.

 

[xtpower]

Quick update from local MP Mohammad Yasin on his meeting with UDX President Page Thompson and the Head and Deputy Head of Universal's government relations team, where they briefed him on progress which he "hopes to share soon". He said the current priority is to prepare the Special Development Order planning application.

Away from the sunny terrace at the Palace of Westminster, the National Planning Inspectorate have accepted Bedford Council's argument that their major development plan for housing and economic development (which has already been several years in the making), basically needs to be scrapped and work started again to take in to account Universal's development. Seems sensible as suddenly introducing a world-class theme park in the middle of your borough is bound to have pretty dramatic effects on all sorts of economic, social, housing and regeneration plans that you might have hoped to develop.

Oh yea, you can't go ahead with a bog-standard plan when you suddenly have probably Britain's most popular tourist attraction built in the middle of your area. Any ideas of what sort of changes they might enact Rob?

 

[masekwm]

Oh yea, you can't go ahead with a bog-standard plan when you suddenly have probably Britain's most popular tourist attraction built in the middle of your area. Any ideas of what sort of changes they might enact Rob?

Submitted Sites

There are several areas around the site that were proposed for housing, I'd expect these could be changed to

• Employment (industrial, office, retail, leisure)

Offering office space or hotels nearby

 

[rob@rar]

Oh yea, you can't go ahead with a bog-standard plan when you suddenly have probably Britain's most popular tourist attraction built in the middle of your area. Any ideas of what sort of changes they might enact Rob?

Really not sure, but we can look at the commentary by the National Planning Inspectorate on Bedford’s original plan as it was being developed and refined. Two of the concerns from the Planning Inspectorate were that the land assigned for house building seemed insufficient, and the changes proposed for road infrastructure were not ambitious enough (especially whether the A421 needed to be widened). These comments were based on Bedford’s plan before it was known that Universal were considering their major development in the borough. With Universal now confirmed to be happening I can’t see that pressure on house building targets and road infrastructure is going to lessen, it is almost certainly going to increase. So when Bedford restart their long term development plan I think they will need to account for concerns previously expressed by the Planning Inspectorate with more ambitious targets, which obviously puts land which could be developed for housing at an even higher premium.

 

[rob@rar]

On a different topic, Embracer Group, owner of amongst many other things the IP rights to Lord of the Rings, today published their 2024-25 annual report. In one segment of their business they reported reduced profit due to the lower than expected performance of the Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim movie. Despite this the company states that:

The Lord of the Rings IP and universe has the potential to become a key driver in the coming decades, with the aim to delight fans across the globe. New stories in streaming and film, and working with partners for our key IPs, support taking the IPs to new heights.

Clearly the company are ambitious to maximise the return of their investment when they bought the IP rights to Lord of the Rings in 2022. Of course, this doesn't mean that we can be confident that Universal will use the LotR IP in any of their parks any time soon. But I think that if Universal did want to explore all things Tolkien in the country in which he was born they would find a willing partner in the Embracer Group, and almost certainly lower licensing fees that the huge sums of money they pay to Warner Bros/JK Rowling for their Wizarding World lands.

 

[Wicket The Cat]

On a different topic, Embracer Group, owner of amongst many other things the IP rights to Lord of the Rings, today published their 2024-25 annual report. In one segment of their business they reported reduced profit due to the lower than expected performance of the Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim movie. Despite this the company states that:

Clearly the company are ambitious to maximise the return of their investment when they bought the IP rights to Lord of the Rings in 2022. Of course, this doesn't mean that we can be confident that Universal will use the LotR IP in any of their parks any time soon. But I think that if Universal did want to explore all things Tolkien in the country in which he was born they would find a willing partner in the Embracer Group, and almost certainly lower licensing fees that the huge sums of money they pay to Warner Bros/JK Rowling for their Wizarding World lands.

You could say they'd Embracer Universal. (sorry)