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Potential New Universal UK Park

The idea that one lone digger is ground clearance for a theme park 😂

Honestly best guess they are flattening some land for site offices (temp structures so don’t need permission so long as the land changes are not extreme), which is a blooming good sign but isn’t ground clearance.
 
Matt N said:
Surely this is more likely ground testing of some sort, isn’t it?

I can’t imagine any big clearance would occur until Universal have gained planning permission, which I can’t see being any time soon (I think maybe next year at the absolute earliest).
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Technically if the government are set to approve the funds needed for their bits for the project isn’t the whole process they’re going to go through now application wise just essentially box ticking?

So whilst they’re not going to be pouring concrete some land clearance is permissible when it’s effectively going ahead behind closed doors and contracts will have been signed.

What’s left to go really? Another public consultation for a project that’s 99.9% going ahead. Land clearance in the meantime doesn’t seem totally out of the realm of possibility.
 
Dave said:
The idea that one lone digger is ground clearance for a theme park 😂

Honestly best guess they are flattening some land for site offices (temp structures so don’t need permission so long as the land changes are not extreme), which is a blooming good sign but isn’t ground clearance.
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Of course it is not for the theme park, it is vegetation being removed and likely being removed so they can construct site offices before September. One of the residents said previously that they think the houses on Manor Road will be demolished to create a site entrance, the area being cleared is directly behind the existing entrance on Manor Road to the rear of the properties.

@Matt N Sadly there is likely many sites that will need to be dug out for testing due to previous use, this area looks to have been next to a concrete area but doesn't look good on old Google images

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If you look in the background of the video, I think you can see someone sewing a Minions Costume too. It'll be open in no time!

In all seriousness though, we're just one step further along what is still a very long road.

Rachel Reeves approving the funds in principle is just reducing another barrier on that road. After all, the government allocating money to a project is very different to spending that money. At the very least there are a lot of planning negotiations still to go, both for Universal, and probably now also for the Government depending on what infrastructure they agree to put in place.
 
Blackrock said:
Technically if the government are set to approve the funds needed for their bits for the project isn’t the whole process they’re going to go through now application wise just essentially box ticking?

So whilst they’re not going to be pouring concrete some land clearance is permissible when it’s effectively going ahead behind closed doors and contracts will have been signed.

What’s left to go really? Another public consultation for a project that’s 99.9% going ahead. Land clearance in the meantime doesn’t seem totally out of the realm of possibility.
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I think “99.9% going ahead” and minimising “another public consultation” as though it’s a mere formality is maybe a tad premature at this stage.

There are many, many hurdles for Universal still to jump through. The government may be the ones rubber stamping the project at the end of the consultation, and they may have allocated funding, but that doesn’t mean that problems won’t arise during it. The public may have been very supportive during the initial consultation back last year, but that’s when Universal UK was all hypothetical and exciting. This will be a thorough consultation; the London Resort said that the DCO planning application would take 18 months from submission to approval, so I can imagine that Universal’s process will be similarly rigorous if not more so.

When that full planning application goes in and the nitty gritty of money, transport arrangements, infrastructure and all that jazz starts to be discussed, reality may bite a little more and people may begin to better realise the potential cost of making Universal UK a reality. The ill-fated London Resort proves that all it takes to completely derail a project is a small number of very dedicated opponents, and these may emerge from the woodwork once Universal UK becomes less hypothetical and starts to become like more of a realistic prospect.
 
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Remember (as the saying goes) we're still "making difficult decisions to stabilise public finances™" and said allocated funds can be taken away at a moment's notice. Planning is far from a simply box ticking exercise too. Even with government support there's still a shed load of red tape, consultations and legal hoops to jump along the way. It only takes a couple of legal challenges to hold things up along the way!

The world is hideously volatile at the moment, so it's impossible to say if that government position to allocate funding can hold while all this planning malarky takes place. Case in point, the Tyne Bridge up these parts had £6m further funding allocated by the Department for Transport to fully finish its refurbishment which is now up in the air. What if say, a major employer elsewhere in the country went bust and desperately needed some sort of bailout? Or a major flooding event required sudden substantial investment to get an area back on its feet? Not to mention the crazy Wotsit causing problems on the other side of the pond!

I sincerely hope that's not the case, but until there's planning permission granted and a shed load of kit on the ground building this thing, I can't go getting excited about potential dates or it being a dead cert just yet!

Yes I'm forever burned by London Resort
 
Clearing nesting sites for both tree and ground dwelling birds is an absolute classic sign of development starting...often done by a single dozer, over a few days, to clear specific areas within the site suitable for nesting...
Seen it many times in the last decade or so...on large developments, that and lengthy netting of remaining hedgerows.
Every large development starts with land clearing on a small scale.
 
rob666 said:
Clearing nesting sites for both tree and ground dwelling birds is an absolute classic sign of development starting...often done by a single dozer, over a few days, to clear specific areas within the site suitable for nesting...
Seen it many times in the last decade or so...on large developments, that and lengthy netting of remaining hedgerows.
Every large development starts with land clearing on a small scale.
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The netting is the tell tell sign for me. We’ve several fields around us surrounded in it all earmarked for housing.
 
Whilst the changes to rail and road for this development could perhaps be classified as NSIPs, let’s not go down the daft route of referring to a theme park as one. That was done with a certain failed park on the Swanscombe Peninsula, and was a crazy idea from the start. If the government are serious about getting infrastructure projects pushed through quickly, and getting the wider support for doing so - such legislation should only be used for actual infrastructure projects.
 
I'd say it's pretty unlikely that the government doesn't try to push this through as a NSIP -- it's a multi-billion pound project comprised of different types of infrastructure that will have wide benefits for the region its in and the country as a whole, and pushing it through the approval processes to get building started as quickly as possible will see those benefits quicker than not doing so. That seems to fit the concept entirely.

I agree that a theme park is not typically nationally significant in the same way that other infrastructure is, but a theme park larger than Disneyland Paris with the potential to alter tourism in the country I would argue definitely is.
 
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benpicko said:
I'd say it's pretty unlikely that the government doesn't try to push this through as a NSIP -- it's a multi-billion pound project comprised of different types of infrastructure that will have wide benefits for the region its in and the country as a whole, and pushing it through the approval processes to get building started as quickly as possible will see those benefits quicker than not doing so. That seems to fit the concept entirely.

I agree that a theme park is not typically nationally significant in the same way that other infrastructure is, but a theme park larger than Disneyland Paris with the potential to alter tourism in the country I would argue definitely is.
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The overall Disneyland Paris project was initially substantially larger than universal Bedford in terms of size and scope no?
 
Certainly - I don’t think there’s ever been another theme park development with so many hotels built in its initial phase.

That said, the Government are desperate to demonstrate their support for “growth” and this project is a prime opportunity for them to do that. The brand recognition for Universal will help them even more - it’s going to catch far more headlines than a new factory being developed.
 
Bowser said:
Somewhat relevant, incoming amendment to planning rules:

PM vows to curb 'Nimby' legal blocks on infrastructure https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3l9jdy2q1o
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The key thing in this article is that they want to prevent repeated legal challenges that are “cynical and hopeless”. NIMBYism refers to those who simply do not want a project to happen under any circumstances, something that I wholly agree should have action taken against. However, NIMBYism is a substantial difference from those stakeholders who present legitimate concerns and want to see them properly addressed and a resolution or compromise reached during the consultation process.

benpicko said:
I'd say it's pretty unlikely that the government doesn't try to push this through as a NSIP -- it's a multi-billion pound project comprised of different types of infrastructure that will have wide benefits for the region its in and the country as a whole, and pushing it through the approval processes to get building started as quickly as possible will see those benefits quicker than not doing so. That seems to fit the concept entirely.

I agree that a theme park is not typically nationally significant in the same way that other infrastructure is, but a theme park larger than Disneyland Paris with the potential to alter tourism in the country I would argue definitely is.
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My personal feelings over NSIP rules aside, I think we also need to be realistic that even if the project is classed as one that we suddenly assume that this means that the development will be “pushed through” and we see construction starting within months. A NSIP still requires a proper consultation process and can be subject to legal challenges regardless. Even a fast-track NSIP has a projected timescale of 12 months:

“It should also be possible to enable some well-prepared applications to proceed through the process from inception to the preliminary meeting at a faster pace. In turn, this should enable the examination to be shorter than the statutory maximum of 6 months, and consequently the reporting and decision-making stages could also be expected to be shorter than the statutory 3 months respectively. In total, these time savings could mean a ‘fast-track’ application proceeding though the stages from acceptance to decision in as little as 12 months.”
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Yes, the resort brings the benefits of tourism to the country. But as I’ve pointed out in previous posts, it also has a potential downside of severely increasing traffic in an area very close to strategically important roads and a lot of businesses who operate things like distribution centres in the area which also employee a lot of people.

With my enthusiast hat on, I don’t want to see a new resort that has issues with guests getting in and out of it when it opens, or issues that risk limits having to be imposed on capacity or opening times further down the line which prevents future expansion or even operation under what’s there already.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the country, and I want a sensible amount of time to be taken for it to be done right. If that means things take a little longer, then I’m happy with that - especially if it means the long term future for the park is a lot more viable.
 
I see very little NIMBYism with the Universal project and the vast majority of locals support it. I have no doubt this will get rubber stamped in the next few weeks it's a no brainer.and an easy win for the government.
 
Quantum said:
I see very little NIMBYism with the Universal project and the vast majority of locals support it. I have no doubt this will get rubber stamped in the next few weeks it's a no brainer.and an easy win for the government.
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Again, you cannot simply “rubber stamp” an application of this size within a few weeks. We need to be realistic here - we don’t OK projects simply off the back of a concept.

A full application must be officially published, consultees must be contacted and then anyone, regardless of where they live or operate will have the opportunity to study those plans and raise objections or indeed support within a set consultation period. Yes, that includes the likes of Merlin as potential competitors too - just as we saw with London Resort. The application will then be assessed and decided on in planning meetings, not only taking into account all consultee responses but also planning law. To suggest we skip/speed up those steps to a matter of weeks simply because surveys by the company and vox pops by news outlets appear to support the concept of the park isn’t going to happen.

You also don’t skip those steps because it’s seen as a win for the government - this isn’t just a house extension where a couple of planning documents can be published and the whole thing ok’d in a matter of weeks. We (rightly) have planning laws for very good reason, where plans are properly consulted on and assessed.

There will of course no doubt be informal discussions in the background with some stakeholders (think Highways, utility companies, Environment Agency etc) to try and iron out potential issues further down the line. We’ve already seen the public work to promote this project with Universal’s website and consultation events, and we’ll no doubt see more when/if a full application is submitted. As an enthusiast, just as we do with Towers additions we should be looking forward to seeing what they come up with - but it’s certainly not something that’s likely to be rushed.
 
To echo @Craig - opposition to the project will be a hugely resource-heavy task, so it wouldn’t really make sense for whichever groups to go public at this early stage.

As things progress and the proposed plans become more concrete, it’s more likely, IMO, that potential opponents will emerge, and put forward their grounds.

Just as a realist, there’s every chance that there are multiple groups waiting in the wings with reason and rationale for opposition. These groups might be waiting for each other to make the first move, undertake the initial surveys/audits/research, or they might be collaborating in the background to beef up opposition.

There are unlimited ways this plays out now. Personally, I’m hopeful despite my reserved message.
 
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