Universal Great Britain - Speculation & Rumors

[tommyhawkins]

I mean, it's probably not great that the recently released documents refer to their houses as "Expansions" when describing contingency plans for whether or not they sell.

Im not convinced the people who immediately call a reporter are taking the the time to read through it though!

 

[masekwm]

Social event of the year - universal on the agenda

Agenda for the Extraordinary Meeting of the Parish Council – 24th July 2025 – Stewartby and Kempston Hardwick Parish Council

Stewartby and Kempston Hardwick Parish Council

stewartbykhparishcouncil.gov.uk

Have you seen the Facebook posts about this?

 

[bedfordmassive]

Have you seen the Facebook posts about this?

Nope

 

[masekwm]

Seems one of the residents from the BBC article is trying to drive people to the meeting.

 

[bedfordmassive]

Seems one of the residents from the BBC article is trying to drive people to the meeting.

Think he’d give me a lift?

 

[Altonsky]

I’m surprised the people behind the London Resort even thought that site was a good idea. They could have potentially got further along if they chose a better location.

They were never going to get anywhere, they had no money and it was literally all a ruse. It was a non starter from day 1z

 

[masekwm]

I read part of a document that said despite their best efforts, they couldn’t identify who owns some land surrounding theirs.

That stuck out to me as quite interesting.

I could be wrong of course.

Looks like there are little segments of land that have never been registered:

 

[Chessy]

Just me speculating here but if the Lake Zone is to be more on the side of hospitality, hotels and recreational areas. And the Core Zone is theme park use. I’d imagine to put in any second gate, they would have to build a large multi story car park to open up more land area. Inevitably I see them starting off with a surface parking area as it’s cheaper.

This is unless they have plans for other land uses in the area. The park itself will obviously have a number of years worth of expansion areas built in. But personally I do see a second gate if all things progress well for them. There’s only so much attraction replacement you can do, as we see with Disney they need more attractions to pad out capacity.

 

[Alicia]

Just me speculating here but if the Lake Zone is to be more on the side of hospitality, hotels and recreational areas. And the Core Zone is theme park use. I’d imagine to put in any second gate, they would have to build a large multi story car park to open up more land area. Inevitably I see them starting off with a surface parking area as it’s cheaper.

This is unless they have plans for other land uses in the area. The park itself will obviously have a number of years worth of expansion areas built in. But personally I do see a second gate if all things progress well for them. There’s only so much attraction replacement you can do, as we see with Disney they need more attractions to pad out capacity.

I haven’t seen it in these planning documents, but last year’s proposal documents listed the possibility of building garages if the needs for the resort grew beyond its current scope.

 

[Dinosaurus]

I haven’t seen it in these planning documents, but last year’s proposal documents listed the possibility of building garages if the needs for the resort grew beyond its current scope.

There's a reference to a multi-storey car park/garage with a height of 30m, but this is the only reference to it I've found. Whether or not it's built during the first phase is anyone's guess.

 

[tommyhawkins]

I haven’t seen it in these planning documents, but last year’s proposal documents listed the possibility of building garages if the needs for the resort grew beyond its current scope.

Remember I mocked up just one parking garage(10,000 spaces), if you built two (same capacity as UOR) it would take up the whole remaining core zone. There wouldn't be space for a second park in the current plot.
They've said they want 12m a year (more than UOR 2019), which could mean 78K peak days. Even taking into account more people travelling by public transport they would still need a fairly significant footprint for parking structures leaving nothing left for a second park in core zone. It's large but nowhere near the size of the Epic "core zone".

Looks they've future proofed the road to have an entrance to the land north of West zone though

I haven’t seen it in these planning documents, but last year’s proposal documents listed the possibility of building garages if the needs for the resort grew beyond its current scope.

 

[Alicia]

There's a reference to a multi-storey car park/garage with a height of 30m, but this is the only reference to it I've found. Whether or not it's built during the first phase is anyone's guess.

Oh nice. And for all zones. Yea it’s a limit they’re setting for just in case. Like saying water park over and over when it seems pretty clear there aren’t currently plans for a water park.

 

[tommyhawkins]

London to Berlin trains part of new Starmer-Merz pledge

Leaders drawing up plans for Eurostar-style service linking capital cities

www.telegraph.co.uk

Seems very much like they want the grow the connections into London St Pancras (and beyond)

 

[JustLikeMe]

Life has been busy since getting home from our Epic opening trip so I've got behind on the progress of the UK park and would like to catch up.

I can see there are already quite a few YouTube channels doing update videos - is there a consensus re which is best?

 

[Altonsky]

London to Berlin trains part of new Starmer-Merz pledge

Leaders drawing up plans for Eurostar-style service linking capital cities

www.telegraph.co.uk

Seems very much like they want the grow the connections into London St Pancras (and beyond)

Eurostar is going to have at least one competitor entering the market within the next few years.

Eurostar all of a sudden now seems extremely open to starting new routes that before now they’d pushed to the back of the queue.

 

[EllieB]

Eurostar is going to have at least one competitor entering the market within the next few years.

Eurostar all of a sudden now seems extremely open to starting new routes that before now they’d pushed to the back of the queue.

It's amazing what a bit of competition will do!

I would be surprised if Virgin are not running trains through the tunnel in the next few years. They seem very keen.

 

[tommyhawkins]

It's amazing what a bit of competition will do!

I would be surprised if Virgin are not running trains through the tunnel in the next few years. They seem very keen.

They got their West Coast mainline bid rejected recently

 

[Alicia]

I can see there are already quite a few YouTube channels doing update videos - is there a consensus re which is best?

I’ve subscribed to all of them! Dont wanna miss anything, right!?

 

[Altonsky]

It's amazing what a bit of competition will do!

I would be surprised if Virgin are not running trains through the tunnel in the next few years. They seem very keen.

I think it’ll most likely be FS Italiane Group which is a subsidiary of Trenitalia and they own 30% of avanti.

Only reason being I think they’ve already purchased or placed an order for rolling stock whereas Virgin haven’t.

 

[EllieB]

I think it’ll most likely be FS Italiane Group which is a subsidiary of Trenitalia and they own 30% of avanti.

Only reason being I think they’ve already purchased or placed an order for rolling stock whereas Virgin haven’t.

Interesting! I'll have to look them up. I've experience of Avanti (have to say, I don't think their service is as good as Virgin used to be on the West Coast mainline) but none of Trenitalia.

I am aware that Virgin we're doing some customer research around marketing strategies for a UK to Europe trainline. Which would seem odd if they weren't strongly considering it.