First Universal theme park in Europe to generate ‘£50bn of economic benefits for UK’
New details have been unveiled for Universal’s first UK theme park – including plans for the attraction to be open 365 days a year.
Universal Destinations & Experiences – which is owned by Sky’s parent company Comcast – has bought land near Bedford as it plans to build Europe’s largest theme park with millions of visitors per year, as well as a 500-room hotel and dining area.
Economic benefits
Universal’s economic impact analysis, produced in line with HM Treasury guidelines on economic appraisal and published today suggests the attraction will generate nearly £50bn of economic benefits for the UK.
It said the net economic contribution of the potential project for the UK was forecast to be £35.1bn over the construction period and first 20 years of operation.
Up to a further £14.1bn was expected to be generated in extra taxes for the exchequer over the same period.
The analysis suggests the project will generate 20,000 jobs during the construction period which, at its peak, will see 5,000 workers on the site.
Once operational, it is expected to create an initial 8,000 new jobs, rising over time. The company has made a commitment to pay the living wage to employees.
‘The best location we’ve ever seen’
Universal has acquired almost 500 acres for the site, which is just south of Bedford between Kempston, Wootton, Stewartby and Wixams, with an option to buy up to a further 200 acres.
A map showing the land Universal has purchased
The new park, which would have a construction period of around six years, would be built on land once occupied by Kempston Hardwick brickworks, once the world’s largest brickworks in terms of output, which closed in 2008 and which was demolished in September 2021.
“I can tell you it’s going to be a world-class park with all experiences that people will love based upon the most popular films, video games and stories that people have enjoyed for decades,” said Page Thompson, the company’s president in charge of new ventures.
“We’ve spent the last decade looking all over Europe and the United Kingdom for locations, and we think this is the best location we’ve ever seen.”
Universal Destinations & Experiences currently has five theme parks around the world – in the United States, Japan, China and Singapore.
Disneyland Paris, which with the associated Walt Disney Studios Park is currently Europe’s biggest theme park, attracts around 15 million visitors per year.
New details
“Our phase one plans consist of a theme park, a 500-room hotel and a dining area that people can come to even if they don’t have a theme park ticket,” Mr Thompson told Sky News.
“Over time, I would expect the number of hotels to grow.
“Our intention is that this park would be open 365 days a year, just like all of our other major theme parks.
“We have a whole series of special events, like our Halloween Horror Nights and carnival parties… and it just allows us to attract people throughout this time.”
Universal said evidence from its other theme parks suggested that for every job supported within the parks at least 1.5 further jobs could be supported in the supply chain and neighbouring parts of the economy – leading to its expectation of a net additional 20,000 jobs.
Plenty of competition
The investment is not without risks and not least because of its scale.
Of Europe’s 20 most visited theme parks, four – Legoland Windsor, Alton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures and Thorpe Park – are in the UK, all owned by the former FTSE-100 giant Merlin Entertainments. Their combined visitor numbers annually come to around half of what Universal is targeting.
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There is also plenty of competition.
Locally, not far from the proposed Bedfordshire site is the Harry Potter Experience at the Warner Bros studio tour near Watford, while there is Woburn Safari Park to the immediate north and Whipsnade Zoo to the immediate west of Luton.
There is no shortage of quality options for family days out. Further afield Europe already has more than 1,000 theme and amusement parks, many of them owned by Merlin, renowned for its astute management.
The weather issue
A third factor, potentially, is the weather. This is something that already handicaps a lot of theme parks in northern Europe, such as Liseberg in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, the Tivoli Gardens in the Danish capital Copenhagen and the original Legoland, in the Danish city of Billund, which close for some or all of the winter. So does Phantasialand, one of Germany’s biggest and most popular attractions.
Universal Destinations & Experiences, however, is thought to be undeterred by the English weather and points to the fact that the weather is not always perfect in other parts of the world in which it operates, most notably China and Japan.
The Paris experience
The company also appears undeterred by the experience of Disney in Paris.
The original Euro Disney was loss-making for many years – partly due to mismanagement and partly due to a misunderstanding of what European and particularly French consumers were looking for – and it has only really been since it was fully consumed by the Walt Disney Company, in 2017, that it has been effectively run.
Transport challenges
Another big risk is the transport links. Universal Destinations & Experiences – the name was changed last year from Universal Parks & Resorts to better reflect the kind of services customers will be offered in future in both the physical and virtual worlds – has selected the site primarily for its rail and road links to London and, with one in three visitors expected to come from overseas, for its proximity to Luton Airport.
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Yet those links are not currently up to handling the kind of visitor numbers Universal Destinations & Experiences is expecting.
The M1, the main road link to London, is frequently congested around the Luton turn-off at junction 10 and the road links from there to the site in need of improvement.
Accordingly, Universal Destinations & Experiences will be seeking government incentives to invest in local road and rail links.
Support could also come from East West Rail, the proposed new main line railway connecting East Anglia and South Wales, the first phase of which is a line between Oxford and Cambridge and for which a new station at Kempston Hardwick – whose existing station backs onto the land the park would operate – has been proposed.
The planning process
Riskiest of all, perhaps, is the planning process. Local businesses and MPs are supportive while both Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor and Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, have been briefed on the project. Planning proposals have been submitted and Universal Destinations & Experiences has held talks with Bedford Borough and Central Bedfordshire Councils.
However, Mr Thompson confirmed that Universal Destinations & Experiences is seeking planning permission via a so-called special development order – which would take the decision out of the hands of the local authorities and instead leave the final decision on planning consent with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
A roll of the dice
So this is a big roll of the dice by Universal Destinations & Experiences.
The investment – the first phase of which will be several billion pounds – will take many years to pay off while thrill-seekers should probably not expect the resort to be up and running much before the end of the decade.
However, starting with a blank sheet of paper as it opens its first European venue, Universal Destinations & Experiences has the opportunity to bring something genuinely new not just to the UK but to Europe.
The name change made by the business last year reflects the fact that, in future, the business expects to be offering branded entertainment, culinary, gaming and consumer product experiences that go a lot further than the traditional theme park and resort offerings.
There could even be experiences at the resort which have yet to be conceived. It could be quite the ride.
A nationwide police operation to track down those in grooming gangs has been announced by the Home Office.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) will target those who have sexually exploited children as part of a grooming gang, and will investigate cases that were not previously progressed.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement: “The vulnerable young girls who suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of groups of adult men have now grown into brave women who are rightly demanding justice for what they went through when they were just children.
“Not enough people listened to them then. That was wrong and unforgivable. We are changing that now.
“More than 800 grooming gang cases have already been identified by police after I asked them to look again at cases which had closed too early.
“Now we are asking the National Crime Agency to lead a major nationwide operation to track down more perpetrators and bring them to justice.”
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The NCA will work in partnership with police forces around the country and specialist officers from the Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce, Operation Hydrant – which supports police forces to address all complex and high-profile cases of child sexual abuse – and the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme.
It comes after Sir Keir Starmer announced a national inquiry into child sex abuse on Saturday, ahead of the release of a government-requested audit into the scale of grooming gangs across the country, which concluded a nationwide probe was necessary.
The prime minister previously argued a national inquiry was not necessary, but changed his view following an audit into group-based child sexual abuse led by Baroness Casey, set to be published next week.
Ms Cooper is set to address parliament on Monday about the findings of the near 200-page report, which is expected to warn that white British girls were “institutionally ignored for fear of racism”.
One person familiar with the report said it details the institutional failures in treating young girls and cites a decade of lost action from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), set up in 2014 to investigate grooming gangs in Rotherham.
The report is also expected to link illegal immigration with the exploitation of young girls.
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Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said on Saturday that Sir Keir should recognise “he made a mistake and apologise for six wasted months”.
Speaking to Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Chancellor Rachel Reeves refused to say if the government will apologise for dismissing calls for a national public inquiry into grooming gangs.
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She said: “What is the most important thing here? It is the victims, and it’s not people’s hurt feelings about how they have been spoken about.”
Career spy Blaise Metreweli will become the first woman to head MI6 in a “historic appointment”, the prime minister has announced.
She will take over from Sir Richard Moore as the 18th Chief, also known as “C”, when he steps down in the autumn.
“The historic appointment of Blaise Metreweli comes at a time when the work of our intelligence services has never been more vital,” Sir Keir Starmer said in a statement released on Sunday night.
“The United Kingdom is facing threats on an unprecedented scale – be it aggressors who send their spy ships to our waters or hackers whose sophisticated cyber plots seek to disrupt our public services.”
Of the other main spy agencies, GCHQ is also under female command for the first time.
Anne Keast-Butler took on the role in 2023, while MI5 has previously twice been led by a woman.
Until now, a female spy chief had only headed MI6 – also known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) – in the James Bond movies.
Blaise Metreweli is the first woman to be named head of MI6. Pic: Reuters
Dame Judi Dench held the fictional role – called “M” in the films instead of “C” – between 1995 and 2015.
Ms Metreweli currently serves as “Q”, one of four director generals inside MI6.
The position – also made famous by the James Bond films, with the fictional “Q” producing an array of spy gadgets – means she is responsible for technology and innovation.
Ms Metreweli, a Cambridge graduate, joined MI6 in 1999.
Unlike the outgoing chief, who spent some of his service as a regular diplomat in the foreign office, including as ambassador to Turkey, she has spent her entire career as an intelligence officer.
Much of that time was dedicated to operational roles in the Middle East and Europe.
Ms Metreweli, who is highly regarded by colleagues, also worked as a director at MI5.
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In a statement, she said she was “proud and honoured to be asked to lead my service”.
“MI6 plays a vital role – with MI5 and GCHQ – in keeping the British people safe and promoting UK interests overseas,” she said.
“I look forward to continuing that work alongside the brave officers and agents of MI6 and our many international partners.”
Sir Richard said: “Blaise is a highly accomplished intelligence officer and leader, and one of our foremost thinkers on technology. I am excited to welcome her as the first female head of MI6.”
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