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[🌎 Universal GB] Planning, Transport and Infrastructure

rob@rar said:
Bedford Council has just scheduled an Extraordinary meeting of their Executive Committee for 30 July. This committee will be formalising the Council's response to whatever consultation the government conducts on the planning application, so I think that's probably the best chance we'll have of seeing application documents because I'm guessing there won't be a public consultation on Universal's plans. No guarantee that the documents will be made public via the Council through the Executive Committee, but normally their committee papers are in the public domain unless they are declared commercially sensitive.
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I'm not so sure. In the local letter they said this:

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xtpower said:
I'm not so sure. In the local letter they said this:
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Hope they are open about the process as that part of the local residents' letter suggests. But I wouldn't be shocked if they kept the detail of their proposals commercially confidentially, to be considered by statutory bodies only, then a less detailed overview of what was going to be built which the public could see.

I wrote in April last year to the previous Secretary of State at the DHCLG, Michael Gove, about the consultation process. Obviously a lot has changed since then, including the government, but this was the response on how it was proposed to deal with the consultation:

Gove response.jpg
 
xtpower said:
@rob@rar has been invited to view the planning docs. His post is here over on insideuniversal - https://forums.insideuniversal.net/threads/universal-great-britain.16149/post-1110575

I'm sure he'll chime in here when he see's this. But we have confirmation the planning docs will be viewable.
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Just to confirm, the planning docs will be publicly available, I’m not getting special access. I’ve been invited to submit comments because I’ve previously been in touch with the DHCLG regarding Universal’s proposal, hence the invitation I received earlier today. From 3 July we’ll all be able to see what Universal have submitted, or at least whatever version of the proposals the government has decided must be made public.
 
Bowser said:
I'm not going to pretend to understand all of this lengthy document but i'm sure others will find it very interesting and apparently at least some of the proposed plans will be viewable from July 3rd:

www.gov.uk

Bedford Entertainment Resort Complex: Handling Arrangements

www.gov.uk www.gov.uk
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Basically, it says that the minister who will decide whether to give planning approval to Universal's application will not be involved in discussions within government which could be seen as promoting the development of this project. Equally, the ministers in government who were involved with promoting the development of Universal's proposed theme park will not be involved in the decision on whether to approval the planning application. Understandably the government doesn't want to be accused of 'marking its own homework' so that when we have the inevitable decision to approve the planning application it will be seen as fair and disinterested.
 
Bowser said:
I'm not going to pretend to understand all of this lengthy document but i'm sure others will find it very interesting and apparently at least some of the proposed plans will be viewable from July 3rd:

www.gov.uk

Bedford Entertainment Resort Complex: Handling Arrangements

www.gov.uk www.gov.uk
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Universal Destinations and Experiences are asking for a Special Development Order. The development is classed as an EIA development under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017, and so requires a higher level of scrutiny.

MHCLG are supposed to be scrutinising the development, but as @rob@rar points out above, there are concerns that the government will be marking its own homework. The documents outline that the departments DCMS, OFI and DfT are essentially cheerleading the project, providing assistance and advice where required, and without hard and set rules, there could be massive conflicts of interest.

Under the proposed legislative tools, any government agency must be objective in its scrutiny of the project. Planning permission could be void otherwise.

MHCLG have taken some steps to mitigate any internal conflict of interest, including the Secretary of State (Angela Rayner) recusing herself of being involved in the planning decisions given a perceived conflict of interest. Instead the final decision has been given to the Planning Minister.

Some of the rules:
  • Planning Minister has to behave impartially and objectively.
  • Anyone within MHGLC who is helping with the planning decision is banned from promoting the development in any way.
  • Anyone who is promoting the project is prohibited from instructing or trying to pressure the planning team.
  • Anyone assisting the promoter is banned from helping the drafting of an Statutory Consultee Response.
The decisions made need to be fair, open and impartial and based only on evidence and considerations which are relevant to the planning merits of the case. Specifically, political pressure and economic benefits pushed by other departments are not to be considered. Just the planning merits.

The Planning Minister has to approach the decision with an open mind and crucially must not have a pre-determined view.

The document provides two lists of people, those who are involved in the consultations and those who are prohibited.

The Planning Minister is solely responsible for the planning decision.
 
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I’m surprised that Matt Pennycook (the Planning Minister) is taking the lead on this after Angela Raynor recused herself. As I understand it, Pennycook was closely involved in the negotiations to get to this point, but Raynor was not so involved. In terms of separation of decision-making I’d have thought Raynor would be perceived as more disinterested than Pennycook, unless she is being held back in reserve in case of some sort of review or appeals mechanism the government might want to put in place.

All slightly academic though, as I can’t imagine the circumstances in which the planning application will be denied. The government has invested too much political capital on this project for the planning process to reach any other answer than “yes, approved”.
 
They have now submitted the plans it seems. We should get a good understanding over the next few days of what they have in store. :)

I'm setting myself up for a monumental disappointment I know but I'm still crossing my fingers for Middle Earth in that NE corner - aka Shrek land.
 
Blackrock said:
Not once but twice this year, on our current trajectory it’s not an if it’s going to happen but a when. Bad energy policy for the past few decades have gotten us into a mess.

watt-logic.com

Blackouts near miss in tightest day in GB electricity market since 2011

The tightest day in the GB power market since 2011 saw a near miss for blackouts and demand control as the spare margin fell to 580 MW
watt-logic.com watt-logic.com

If you search for the topic on twitter you’ll see those who know far more about it than I do discussing both incidents in depth.

We’re extremely, extremely vulnerable atm. We’re overly reliant on energy coming into the country try via cables, and Norway in particular aren’t exactly happy atm that we’re so reliant on them.
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We are not so reliant on them. You do know you can see in real time, online, the power usage and generation of the the UK by different fuels. We are never getting more than a few percent of our total power needs by undersea cables.
 
Benjsh said:
They have now submitted the plans it seems. We should get a good understanding over the next few days of what they have in store. :)

I'm setting myself up for a monumental disappointment I know but I'm still crossing my fingers for Middle Earth in that NE corner - aka Shrek land.
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I’m setting myself up for plans with a huge amount of generic blocks and shapes like how Merlin do to hide ride elements.

I doubt these plans will have any kind of IP theming whatsoever other than the universal globe
 
John said:
This feels very off topic but as of right now we're importing nearly 20% of our total usage, that's not insignificant. Source: https://grid.iamkate.com/

1000011134.png
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I would have been curious to see the breakdown of the transfers. There are much better websites than the one shown for that. Obviously it has changed now. But that figure which is at 6.1GW there represents power we are both sending and receiving from abroad.

It is very common for us to send power and at the same time, recieve power.

20% of the power will have been from transfers yes, at 6.1GW, but that includes sending and receiving power. I highly doubt were not relying on 20% power imported. As we almost always are never just receiving or sending, it is almost always a mixture of both.

Although admittedly now, we are receiving more than sending. We do have extra offline capacity though, just the demand is so low, it doesnt warrant using it as the grid would be over producing, so easier to import.
 
DistortAMG said:
I would have been curious to see the breakdown of the transfers. There are much better websites than the one shown for that. Obviously it has changed now. But that figure which is at 6.1GW there represents power we are both sending and receiving from abroad.

It is very common for us to send power and at the same time, recieve power.

20% of the power will have been from transfers yes, at 6.1GW, but that includes sending and receiving power. I highly doubt were not relying on 20% power imported. As we almost always are never just receiving or sending, it is almost always a mixture of both.

Although admittedly now, we are receiving more than sending. We do have extra offline capacity though, just the demand is so low, it doesnt warrant using it as the grid would be over producing, so easier to import.
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It does show the breakdown to which interconnect is doing what if you scroll down the page but it’s hard to do a snapshot in time really; I’ve just looked and we’re providing 97% of our demand for example.

Anyway the demands of the power grid aren’t as riveting as seeing what Comcast have in store for us tomorrow are they..
 
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