Universal Great Britain

[havaska]

Labour are investing money in HS2 and Great British Energy. Both of which will cost hundreds of billions. So theirs no chance they will invest in this as well.

Not true.

Any government will invest where they think they’ll get a decent return. HS2 was the previous government’s white elephant too.

 

[Mike2024]

Not true.

Any government will invest where they think they’ll get a decent return. HS2 was the previous government’s white elephant too.

I thought they'd cancelled HS2, and sold off the land? I haven't been following the news though. I just remember the fallout when they cancelled the northern routes, a few months ago.

 

[Doug88]

I thought they'd cancelled HS2, and sold off the land? I haven't been following the news though. I just remember the fallout when they cancelled the northern routes, a few months ago.

Labour is buying the land back and restarting it lol

 

[Mike2024]

That's weird. The page went all weird for a while, all the text was scattered randomly, and half a dozen posts since yesterday have now disappeared. Does that happen a lot on this forum?

 

[mccgavin]

That's weird. The page went all weird for a while, all the text was scattered randomly, and half a dozen posts since yesterday have now disappeared. Does that happen a lot on this forum?

We tried to upgrade the forums last night but it caused a major issue - so we had to backup everything as of yesterday morning; meaning all of Tuesday’s posts after 5am were lost. We’re sorry about that!

 

[Mike2024]

I wasn't sure if it was on my end because I've had a couple of online issues, today, myself.

 

[IzzyB]

This is the first time I am aware of this ever happening. So no, not something that often happens.

 

[Doug88]

The bots are trying to hijack universal.

 

[tommyhawkins]

lot of this stuff with the letter is noise. When the tories were in power they were doing the same thing Labour will be doing, haggling on price.

Both parties will have a number in mind for what they are prepared to pay. Any subsidies negotiations will take months regardless. This notion that Universal will throw a strop and walk away are fantasy, either the board approved the money or it didn't. It wouldn't be a very good business decision on NBCU part if the entire costings of the project were contingent on getting a full discount from UK PLC. Ask yourself how much discount on a multi billion project youd be willing to accept before you just had to get on with it all, cos you know youll make it back with ROI eventually?

 

[Excalibur]

It’s all gone suspiciously quite recently, let’s hope there’s a lot going on behind the scenes!

 

[Lost Meerkat]

It’s all gone suspiciously quite recently, let’s hope there’s a lot going on behind the scenes!

I think the new Gov is getting its ducks in a row. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is due to give a speech on Monday about the state of the country finances and the outcomes a Treasury report on the current state of things. There will be nothing new in the report, it was all known about well before the election. I reckon that any major announcements on investments will be getting put on hold until after the speech, as that is going to claim a big black hole in finances and a need to raise taxes, so they probably want to time any Universal announcement to best effect.
From the recent noises about attracting investment, including announcements made by Rachel Reeves on a recent visit to the USA, it seems highly likely that any foreign investment opportunity is going to be well received, so hopes are high, but we may have to be patient.

 

[Doug88]

The government have just announced because of a £22 billion black hole they are scaling back on road and rail projects. Will this affect universal?

 

[bedfordmassive]

I think unlikely:
1) The major road upgrade is to connect the A421 which runs by the site from Black Cat roundabout to Claxton Gibbet - this makes it much easier to get the site from Cambridge and everything east of there (admittedly not a huge population). That has already started so won't be canceeled.
2) The major high cost rail upgrade that's relevant is East West Rail - that I don't think has been mentioned in any reporting I've seen. The section to the West of Bedford is already well underway (e.g. Oxford to Bletchley). I guess it's the Bedford-Cambridge bit that's at risk, but again that's a pretty advanced in terms of planning and I've not seen it mentioned as under threat.
3) The most important rail upgrade is a new station at Wixams which will essentially be a railway station adjoining UGB on a major rail line to London (including Gatwick and Luton Airports directly). That is very unlikely to be scrapped - costs are minimal in the grand scheme and I think met locally anyway rather than central gov. There's no new line to be built for this, so it's not going to move the needle on national spending.

All in all, it's item 2 that could be at risk, though again I've not heard it mentioned specifically. It's not the end of the world from a UGB perspective, but it would be a bit of a blow locally. Item 3 is the only really critical one. I hope that UGB is enough to keep East West Rail off the chopping block.

 

[Jake S]

This is the budget shortfall referred to. Any relation to the Universal project is purely speculation.

 

[rob@rar]

The Treasury will have to approve whatever the DCMS thinks the government should pay towards the infrastructure upgrades required by the theme park. I’d guess that today’s statement by the Chancellor makes that request by the DCMS more difficult (and it’s never easy to get a commitment to spend several hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money). However, the DCMS will be able to argue that the expenditure from the government on this infrastructure will enable a very significant amount of foreign direct investment, to the benefit of the local area, the region and the country as a whole, not least through increased taxes which will be paid by Universal and its supply chain for the economic activity which will arise from a large theme park. That’s why the economic benefit analysis published by Universal a couple of weeks ago (but undertaken by an independent body) was so important. It makes a convincing case for that investment and quantifies the return to the public purse from developing the road and rail infrastructure.

Overall I don’t think the new government discovering a very challenging financial situation will affect Universal’s decision to build in Bedford, but I do think it will have caused a pause in the negotiations between Universal and the government. No Minister would have made a commitment to new public expenditure while the Treasury was calculating how big the financial “black hole” was. Now that the immediate review of public finances has been undertaken perhaps negotiation with Universal can be concluded and hopefully both sides can agree an investment package that they are happy to live with.

 

[Luke Hutchinson]

The Treasury will have to approve whatever the DCMS thinks the government should pay towards the infrastructure upgrades required by the theme park. I’d guess that today’s statement by the Chancellor makes that request by the DCMS more difficult (and it’s never easy to get a commitment to spend several hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money). However, the DCMS will be able to argue that the expenditure from the government on this infrastructure will enable a very significant amount of foreign direct investment, to the benefit of the local area, the region and the country as a whole, not least through increased taxes which will be paid by Universal and its supply chain for the economic activity which will arise from a large theme park. That’s why the economic benefit analysis published by Universal a couple of weeks ago (but undertaken by an independent body) was so important. It makes a convincing case for that investment and quantifies the return to the public purse from developing the road and rail infrastructure.

Overall I don’t think the new government discovering a very challenging financial situation will affect Universal’s decision to build in Bedford, but I do think it will have caused a pause in the negotiations between Universal and the government. No Minister would have made a commitment to new public expenditure while the Treasury was calculating how big the financial “black hole” was. Now that the immediate review of public finances has been undertaken perhaps negotiation with Universal can be concluded and hopefully both sides can agree an investment package that they are happy to live with.

I guess we’ll know what the state of current negotiations are when Mohammad Yasin receives a reply from DCMS but that might be delayed until after the summer recess

 

[Doug88]

We're in a position where universal won't commit unless the government gives them a grant and the government won't commit until universal decide to go ahead.

 

[rob@rar]

I guess we’ll know what the state of current negotiations are when Mohammad Yasin receives a reply from DCMS but that might be delayed until after the summer recess

Perhaps, but the DCMS could easily give Yasin a noncommittal reply to that letter and I'd fear we'd be none the wiser. It's not as if backbench MPs have much power or influence in these situations.

What I think is more helpful to us as we wait for firm news is the comment from Bedford's Chief Planning Officer for Infrastructure who reported to one of Bedford Council's committees a couple of weeks ago that he thought agreement between the government and Universal was close. I guess that the planning officer is fully aware of that negotiation process (he confirmed he was subject to a Non-Disclosure Agreement), so I'm encouraged that he reported to the Council in a positive manner. I think there's no doubt that the election and change of government has slowed down the planning application process, and that negotiations involving large sums of public money are complex (especially right now) That's probably a good thing, I don't think the government should simply hand Universal a blank cheque. But Universal can make a convincing case that investment by the government in local infrastructure around the theme park will provide very good rates of return for the public purse for years to come, helping to grow the economy. That seems to me to be very much in keeping with the principal ambition of the new government, so I'm confident that an agreement will be found.

 

[rob@rar]

Bedford Council have updated their list of forthcoming decisions which will be taken by their Executive Committee. The Council's consultation response to the government on the Universal Special Development Order is still listed in the forward plan, but the decision-due date has moved from July 2024 to September 2024.

 

[Doug88]

Bedford Council have updated their list of forthcoming decisions which will be taken by their Executive Committee. The Council's consultation response to the government on the Universal Special Development Order is still listed in the forward plan, but the decision-due date has moved from July 2024 to September 2024.

The main thing is universals decision. We can't go any further until they decide.