Universal Great Britain - Speculation & Rumors

[EllieB]

The universal exec told Starmer directly that it would be 4 lands. I can’t see how they expect to get 8.5m visitors per year with that tbh

It's possible for them to have four themed lands and then some standalone attractions to increase capacity. For example, I can't see the rumoured Bond stunt show fitting into any of the suggested lands.

 

[yepthatguy]

Aside from the IP and lands, does anyone know what happens next in the park timeline?

Like if there will be further consultations and when the planning application will go in?

Just wondering on next steps really and date timeline.

 

[tommyhawkins]

Aside from the IP and lands, does anyone know what happens next in the park timeline?

Like if there will be further consultations and when the planning application will go in?

Just wondering on next steps really and date timeline.

its all unknowns with the new streamlined planning process. Although can expect s much quicker process than what was in place with previous government

 

[Alicia]

They said they’ll be submitting plans in the coming months for approvals. Beyond that we don’t have any official timeline information at this time.

 

[Altonsky]

You’d like to think they’re submitted before the 22nd July because they’re all off after that until the 1st September.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

You’d like to think they’re submitted before the 22nd July because they’re all off after that until the 1st September.

We could actually see that happening. They likely have the park's infrastructure/general layout designed by now, just a matter of submitting final approvals/confirming everything.

Universal Kids was officially announced Jan 2023 and construction started Nov 2023. A few weeks later they released updated concept art.

Assuming that this project uses that same timeline (obviously the UK isn't as easy as Texas for development), construction could start as soon as Feb/Mar 2026.

 

[Altonsky]

We could actually see that happening. They likely have the park's infrastructure/general layout designed by now, just a matter of submitting final approvals/confirming everything.

Universal Kids was officially announced Jan 2023 and construction started Nov 2023. A few weeks later they released updated concept art.

Assuming that this project uses that same timeline (obviously the UK isn't as easy as Texas for development), construction could start as soon as Feb/Mar 2026.

Yeah, you’d think if they want to start construction in 2026 submitting docs mid September would be quite late.

 

[rob@rar]

I think Bedford Council’s planning consultant told one of the Council’s scrutiny committees that Universal had a fairly complete planning application nearly ready for submission last Autumn. I’d guess they’re going to move quite quickly on getting the legal necessities in place so that Universal can sign construction contracts to get major groundworks started early next year.

 

[DanM]

Universal want to build HUGE 476-acre theme park less than two hours from London

Universal Destinations & Experiences is exploring plans for a potential new theme park and resort less than two hours from London.

www.islingtongazette.co.uk

According to the above link the additional option to purchase the extra land is for land 'to the south west of the main site'. It could perhaps be the land highlighted below by another poster @tommyhawkins ?

Hi all , just wondering if we know the current status of this site (in red) next to the proposed park. would it be suitable for possible expansion? or is it planned to be something else.View attachment 25984

 

[KentNelson]

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Universal chose, for its first park in Europe, a location two hours from London — with cold and rainy weather most of the year, outside the European Union, and in the only territory in Europe where they can’t use Harry Potter. I’m not sure there will be much non-British audience willing to travel to a remote town outside the capital for Paddington Bear, Back to the Future, or 007.

 

[DanM]

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Universal chose, for its first park in Europe, a location two hours from London — with cold and rainy weather most of the year, outside the European Union, and in the only territory in Europe where they can’t use Harry Potter. I’m not sure there will be much non-British audience willing to travel to a remote town outside the capital for Paddington Bear, Back to the Future, or 007.

The weather is not as bad as gossip suggests. Winter months are not good, but most of the rest of the year it is good, especially in the region the park will be in.

As for remoteness. It's a 45 minute journey on the train from London, perfectly situated in that regard. You're also disregarding the fact that EU nations simply aren't very interested in Hollywood IP, whereas Brits are much more into US-based IP.

If a park opened in the EU it would be less successful simply because the local population aren't really into Hollywood IP. Plenty of Brits are well into BTTF, Jurassic world etc. I agree in some sense though, they should be pulling out all the stops for HP and LoTR as those IPs are much stronger in Europe and some of the few that would better get people in the EU to visit a park in the UK.

 

[bedfordmassive]

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Universal chose, for its first park in Europe, a location two hours from London — with cold and rainy weather most of the year, outside the European Union, and in the only territory in Europe where they can’t use Harry Potter. I’m not sure there will be much non-British audience willing to travel to a remote town outside the capital for Paddington Bear, Back to the Future, or 007.

I've just got on a train at St Pancras waiting to leave. I'll be in Bedford in 40 minutes - admittedly leaving a few minutes late as ran out of washer fluid (!). The new Wixams station serving St Pancras will be 3-4 minutes closer. It's <20 minutes from Luton Airport for a direct train (which we can assume). Allowing for the slow train, there are around 8 trains per hour which take between 40 minutes and just over an hour (stopping service) between London and Bedford. The Thameslink line (slower trains) goes all the way through London, so you can get on a train 5 minutes walk from Tower Bridge and get off at UGB without changing. The line also goes direct to Gatwick airport and Heathrow is v convenient via Elizabeth line. It will have a second dedicate stop on the new East West Rail line which will connect Oxford and Cambridge, so it's part of a major tourist arc.

As I showed a year or more ago (below), Bedford has 22-24m people within 100km. This is more than any other location in Europe.

The populations around a park are really interesting - to me at least. Here's the population density within x km of Disneyland Paris, US Orlando, and proposed US GB. All three have very different profiles for local populations.

• The proposed GB location rises sharply with distance beyond 50km as London and Birmingham come into contention, which explains the 2 hour travel stats (50% of population).
• Paris is on the doorstep of DLP but falls behind the proposed USGB location at around 70km and ends up with many fewer within 2 hours (though the toll road system in France means you can cover distance v fast if you pay).
• Orlando has a good population very close but a very small population outside of the immediate environs.
  View attachment 20367

Public transport also interesting - this is for trains but bus stops have the same pattern:
View attachment 20368

This might be of zero interest, but for me it helps to understand the logic of the location - small population within 30 mins door to door with proposed GB site, but enormous within 60-90 minutes.

There is likely a probability distribution that I could use to weight probability of visit based on distance - if anyone knows of a data source for that I'd be keen to work it into calculations. Data source I have is limited to 100km, but taking this as the maximum radius 22-24 million is the most you can get within 100km in the UK, and to get that you can build a park anywhere in a triangle defined by Oxford, Bedford, and London. London-based parks will fall behind at >100km as you're entering the channel and not yet reaching Birmingham, so it becomes an arc between Oxford and Bedford that have maximal population catchment at 120km. Major options in this are Oxford, Milton Keynes, and Bedford - Bedford has best airport and train connections of those plus probably cheapest most plentiful land.

Interestingly, I can't find any other area in Europe with a population approaching 22m within a 100km radius (100km probably being about 90 minutes drive allowing time to get to a major road). Most major population centres in Germany and France seem to top out around 15-16m in a 100km radius, thought I've just been randomly selecting areas of highest population density (just found building near Eindhoven gets you 20m as you get both Amsterdam and Dusseldorf).

This graph is of number of people (y axis) living within a certain radius (x axis, km) of Bedford and several other theme parks - assuming 150km is 2 hours drive (or maybe a bit more) that means 35m people in that reach of Bedford, approx double the number within the same distance as Paris:


To summarise - it's not 2 hours outside London, it's in the best place in England to be accessible to the highest population (allowing that London isn't the only place people live) with 22m people <100km, it's very close to Luton Airport which is increasing capacity to 30m a year.

The climate is also pretty much identical to Disneyland Paris.

Hope that helps.

 

[mainejeff]

I wonder if this would be good location for Universal's first ever indoor waterpark?

 

[Chessy]

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Universal chose, for its first park in Europe, a location two hours from London — with cold and rainy weather most of the year, outside the European Union, and in the only territory in Europe where they can’t use Harry Potter. I’m not sure there will be much non-British audience willing to travel to a remote town outside the capital for Paddington Bear, Back to the Future, or 007.

I’ve visited Universal Orlando 7+ times since 1996 and obviously aside from American folks. You tend to hear a lot of British accents, as well as Canadian and Brazilian. I have rarely picked up on a lot of EU visitors i.e. French, German etc.

So in a sense that already tells you why Universal was more inclined to put a park in the UK. Familiarity with the brand and its parks. I understand your point somewhat, but the EU as a market to Universal is unproven to an extent. They ended their interest in Portaventura back in 2004.

And learning from Disney of how not to build and operate a new park in Europe. I think that was definitely a factor of why it took Universal a long time to come to the European sphere.

 

[BBPH]

We (the British) bloody love a day out and we love a theme park even more… we just don’t have a good one world class one.

 

[EllieB]

I wonder if this would be good location for Universal's first ever indoor waterpark?

That would be very cool. A bit of outdoors isn't the end of the world either, Centre Parcs manage it. As long as you don't have to be out of the water whilst you're outside I think it's fine.

 

[JT01]

They’re also well aware that they don’t face any real competition in the UK. While countries like Germany have Europa Park, France has Disneyland Paris, and Spain has PortAventura, most other European countries simply don’t have the economic scale, population size, or tourism infrastructure to justify the level of investment required for a Universal resort.


The UK, on the other hand, presents a unique opportunity. It’s one of the largest economies in Europe, has a strong tourism sector, and an English speaking population making it highly accessible for international visitors. Most importantly, Universal wouldn’t be going head to head with any major theme park brand over here. Merlin Entertainments, while dominant in the UK, doesn’t pose any serious threat to Universal in terms of quality and theming. Their parks, like Alton Towers or Thorpe Park, cater to a different audience and simply don’t operate on the same scale or level of ambition as a Universal park.


In short, the UK is a rare sweet spot for Universal, a large, untapped market with no direct competition and enough economic and tourism potential to support a major resort. Yes the weather sucks in winter, but so does most of northern Europe. Ours winters while quite damp is much milder than parts of mainland Europe.

 

[Scott W.]

It's another flooded pit, you can see it on the right of this photo, I expect the hatched red area to be included at some point it seems to have had a clean up.

View attachment 25988

That's the real Waterworld attraction.

The universal exec told Starmer directly that it would be 4 lands. I can’t see how they expect to get 8.5m visitors per year with that tbh.

It's possible for them to have four themed lands and then some standalone attractions to increase capacity. For example, I can't see the rumoured Bond stunt show fitting into any of the suggested lands.

That's what I've been thinking. BTTF could just be a stand alone in the same way.

Depending on how much you look into the concept art as fact of layout.

Let's say there is a Jaws attraction. Jaws, JP and BTTF could easily be small areas within a large classic Universal movies land.
Add LOTR, Paddington and Illumunation and you have your 4 lands. Paddington and Bond could be combined to make a British movies land or something, I donno.

 

[CoasterFan247]

Yes the weather sucks in winter, but so does most of northern Europe. Ours winters while quite damp is much milder than parts of mainland Europe.

Our winters are far easier to endure than Orlando in July-September and Osaka is a little colder in the winter while being unbearable in summer and also being hit by cyclones. I think the concerns people have raised is quite overblown and we've also seen people flock to Disney/Universal parks in Winter to try to visit when it's quieter despite the weather. The bigger impact is more that domestically people tend to spend less in January/February because of Christmas but so long as the park has a unique draw like LOTR it'd gain a decent rate of international visitors day-tripping from London. In fact this year London was as busy in January as any other time outside of summer months, I could barely get my hands out to enjoy a taiyaki while barely able to move through Chinatown.

The universal exec told Starmer directly that it would be 4 lands. I can’t see how they expect to get 8.5m visitors per year with that tbh.

I do find the 4 lands statement difficult to reconcile with the concept, just because it's hard to call BTTF a whole "land", but then I suppose in Paris they do have Ratatouille land which is about the same size on the frontage. It's just odd that if we took top-left as JP/JW that it's absolutely vast and then you have a small 1-attraction area as a land, and then why would the Jaws area with presumable-ride-building not be a land when BTTF is.

I could see what we've got as 3 lands, some isolated bits, and waiting on a 4th land to be revealed. I am hoping this means there is a surprise landmark attraction that stands out in IP or in some other way. It would make sense for e.g. LOTR (or whatever new IP) not to waste some free marketing buzz by revealing that at the same time as the concept art. Wishful thinking though I am 90% sure.

I do hope it's not Bond though. I don't know how people outside the UK feel about it but while the movies and franchise is enjoyed/loved there's been no success in Bond-based attractions in the UK. You'd think it'd be easy to open a Bond museum, attraction, etc in London and make some money but that's been done and failed a few times. And ultimately it's just kind of boring imo, whatever attraction I think of I always think it'd be more exciting as another more fantastical IP, but that's taste.

 

[tommyhawkins]

Universal want to build HUGE 476-acre theme park less than two hours from London

Universal Destinations & Experiences is exploring plans for a potential new theme park and resort less than two hours from London.

www.islingtongazette.co.uk

According to the above link the additional option to purchase the extra land is for land 'to the south west of the main site'. It could perhaps be the land highlighted below by another poster @tommyhawkins ?

South west is the farm (orange) or part of the former landfill site. The former quarry is to the east. The thing is with building on flooded quarries is you've gotta fill it with materials to raise the water table, which is exactly what uni did at the Epic site ...took them like 18months...added 9-10ft of top soil. Much easier to build on green field land.