Universal Great Britain - Speculation & Rumors

[ZeroSight]

Alot of these concerns are for villages or roads that are way out of Universal's purview. You give them answers for the main roads and then suddenly you get a half dozen new places and roads thrown at you. I appreciate these concerns are legit for the roads around the Park and adjacent villages, but no matter how much you reassure them that these issues are covered and Universal have a plan they just come up with new concerns.

*edit* Someone on facebook cited Alton Towers as possible comparison in regards to the traffic the villages will see. Which blew my mind, Alton Towers is a prime example of a Park with horrendous transport access, UGB is on the opposite side of the spectrum and even if the A421 flooded, it'd still be 50x better to get to than AT.

Another concern that is starting to really bug me is this idea that parkgoers will skip the A421 and just go through the villages to get access. I don't know about any of you, but everytime I've been on a trip we've never taken routes through villages when there was a direct route via motorways - the motorways are always faster and far less stressful than having to navigate some villages in an attempt to beat the traffic.

The only people I see taking the villages are the locals, or those around the area who feel they know better. Some family rocking up at Luton Airport and using a rental car will take the motorways and direct route.

I'm all for the park, I travel the world and plan holidays around theme parks. But the concerns for us locals are valid, and this is the time to voice them in the hope the concerns are addressed.

The main areas that concern me is that currently, without any extra few thousand cars in the area, is the crossroads NE of the Bedford Interchange and the road leading from/to that past it (B530). And Ampthill High Street. It's an old town about 3 miles south and is one lane near the mini roundabout. Already on a standard weekend it gets very busy, it gets even worse when the M1 has issues. Now add in an extra few thousand cars travelling to and from the park and the M1 is closed or congested, which happens more than you think and it'll be an absolute mess and really hard for the locals to go about their business and also for Universal visitors. If the M1 isn't running well for whatever reason, people do use the Harlington, Westoning, Flitwick, Ampthill route. I don't know what could be done that's not too expensive to resolve, but these concerns the locals are raising, shouldn't just be dismissed. The new infrastructure at the Black Cat, at J13 and getting into the park will not resolve any of this.

 

[rob@rar]

I don't know what could be done that's not too expensive to resolve, but these concerns the locals are raising, shouldn't just be dismissed. The new infrastructure at the Black Cat, at J13 and getting into the park will not resolve any of this.

I completely agree that these concerns shouldn't be dismissed. Universal and/or the government should at the very least say "we have considered these concerns in a systematic way, with the best traffic flow modelling tools available to us, and here is what we think will be the typical situation and this is what might happen when traffic flow is disrupted from normal". I've read some of the planning documents regarding traffic estimations and it all seems reasonable, but I've not looked in close detail so the concerns you and other locals have raised might not have been addressed. What I did find disappointing from watching some of the local councillor engagement events or meetings was that clearly the councillors and the local residents hadn't read the aspects of the planning documents that referred directly to the concerns they were discussing.

I think these kinds of issues are best resolved if there's a respectful two-way conversation between Universal and the local community. I'm not sure that's happening at the moment. Universal have laid out extremely detailed plans and forecasts and I don't think that many people are engaging with that information. I think it's inevitable that planning permission is going to be granted and the resort will be constructed, so you're right to say that it's not obvious what could be done that's not too expensive to resolve some of these concerns, but I think the starting point should be to understand whether the concerns are realistic or simply understandable fears which are unlikely to come to pass. The best way to address that is through the kind of traffic flow modelling that Universal presented in their planning applications, which from what I can see simply doesn't feature in the local debates.

 

[yepthatguy]

I’d describe Ampthill as picturesque.

I’ve driven through there before quite a few times, often getting stuck at the double roundabouts in the village centre, where there is maybe just enough room to get 2 vehicles though, if you are lucky.

If international visitors were staying for multiple days at the Universal Resort, I’d suspect a good few might be interested in visiting a quaint Georgian Market town less than 15 minutes drive away, that has Boutiques, Antiques Shops, Tea Rooms, and proper English pubs.

Perhaps less known are its links to Henry VIII and Katherine Of Aragon as Ampthill Castle (just a huge park now) used to be a Royal Residence.

Apologies for the poor history lesson, I’m just surprised that people are raising concerns of traffic going through it, rather than people descending on it.

I had a quick look and there’s only a couple of Air Bnbs in Ampthill listed. It’ll be interesting to see if that changes as things progress.

On a relevant side note, I once had some American friends come visit whilst they were in the UK (close family friends). I took them to Ampthill, and they loved it.

 

[rob@rar]

Spent the last couple of days listening, on loop, to the newly released “Dark Universe” soundtrack from Danny Elfman. Wonderful to have a world class film composer provide the score to an entire land in Epic Universe. The music is wonderfully evocative, with intriguing titles such as ‘Enter The Guild of Mystics’, ‘Pretorius Scientific Oddities’, and ‘Nothing Stays Buried in Darkmore’. It’s going to be three or four years before I want to go to the USA, so until I finally get to visit Epic Universe I’m going to have to let this music fire my imagination. I really hope that when Universal opens in Bedford the park invests in brilliant attraction and incidental music to lift the emotional content of everything that Universal Creative deliver for us. It can really lift a park in to something special.

 

[EllieB]

I visited the site / area last week. It was exciting to see the spaces I'd only seen in maps and plans before, and to imagine what might be there in the future.

One thing I'd say about traffic; a lot of people will navigate to the site using Google Maps or other sat nav, not necessarily following the brown sign route (that's the officially signposted tourist route, for anyone not familiar with the UK slang), so when the official route is busy around park open / close I can definitely see the other local roads seeing an increase in traffic.

 

[ZeroSight]

One thing I'd say about traffic; a lot of people will navigate to the site using Google Maps or other sat nav, not necessarily following the brown sign route (that's the officially signposted tourist route, for anyone not familiar with the UK slang), so when the official route is busy around park open / close I can definitely see the other local roads seeing an increase in traffic.

The M1 south from J13 to J12 was closed today. I had to go over to Woburn at 15:30 and it was closed then, and was still closed when I came back at 7pm. So the villages had a lot of extra traffic going through them today. So it does happen. As I say I'm all for this park, but just wanted to get a locals take and confirm the concerns by local people are valid. It was assumed here on a few posts that the traffic situation is nothing to worry about and visitors will never need to go through the villages. Unfortunately, unforseen circumstances do happen and the villages will get over loaded more so in the future with all the visitors to the park. The only negative I can think of as a local, but the many positives outweigh it.

 

[tielo]

Well, I'll take a airplane from Eindhoven airport Netherlands and will fly to the closest airport in the UK and grab the train to the entrance of the park. After a few days I'll drop down to London or some other places so no car traffic from me.

 

[xtpower]

Well, I'll take a airplane from Eindhoven airport Netherlands and will fly to the closest airport in the UK and grab the train to the entrance of the park. After a few days I'll drop down to London or some other places so no car traffic from me.

I live on the East Coast, if EWR pulls their finger out, I'll be able to take a train all the way to the front gate. I'd actually prefer the train over car, so there's two of us who want to lessen traffic for the locals .

 

[rob@rar]

I was travelling south on the M1 yesterday, and just spotted the closure so came off the motorway at J14 and headed cross-country to eventually join the M40. Added a bit of time, but my satnav directed me away from the congestion not towards it. Could have been a lot worse if I’d not been paying attention to the traffic info on my satnav and the motorway signs, so I think I had a lucky escape. Hope whoever was involved in the accident makes a full recovery, although the presence of an air ambulance is never a good sign (as I know from experience).

In terms of my future travel to Universal, car is my only sensible option: M25-M1-A421, as the train would be significantly longer and significantly more expensive. I do understand the concerns from locals about the potential for traffic disruption, but I also recognise what @ZeroSight says about no obvious (and reasonably priced) solution to the rare occasions when traffic is significantly disrupted. If the M1-A421 route is out of action I have the alternative of the A1-A421 which although longer arrives at the theme park from the opposite direction so might help avoid road chaos. If the road network is so heavily disrupted that the best option is to take the grid-locked back roads through Mid-Bedfordshire’s villages I’m probably going to head back home and visit on a different day. It would be nice if the good people in the towns and villages surrounding Universal could have all the advantages of that massive inward investment with no disadvantages at all, but I don’t think that’s how the world is. I live in SW London not too far from Heathrow and the M25, which mostly is great for my transport options but occasionally leads to gridlocked roads and background aircraft noise. It’s just the way it is. I could move to a different location, but where I am offers many advantages I’m very happy with, so I have to accept the accompanying disadvantages.

Well, I'll take an airplane from Eindhoven airport Netherlands and will fly to the closest airport in the UK and grab the train to the entrance of the park. After a few days I'll drop down to London or some other places so no car traffic from me.

Luton Airport for the win!

 

[EllieB]

From the Midlands, unless you're already in Birmingham the train would take longer than driving because of the connections you'd need to get, so I suspect most people coming from West / north of Birmingham will drive. If you're on the east you're in the right place for the train, and south would be fairly similar I would think.

 

[xtpower]

There's actual news. Over on We Are Universal Studios Great Britain | Facebook they've sniffed out that Universal has taken the option on the land for the West Gateway Zone.

 

[rob@rar]

Does that now take Universal’s actual landholding up to the 700 acres that they referenced in the first report they published last April?

 

[xtpower]

Does that now take Universal’s actual landholding up to the 700 acres that they referenced in the first report they published last April?

Close enough, there's still little pockets that would bring it to 700, but I expect they have those in hand already.

 

[masekwm]

Does that now take Universal’s actual landholding up to the 700 acres that they referenced in the first report they published last April?

No where near, this is 510 acres in total, 70 for the option land, 240 for the land with the concrete pad and 237 for the farm land.

I also got stuck yesterday on the M1, but even when I got off at J13 the villages weren't screwed as people suggested in fact going the back way through Marston rather than the usual route via Flitwick as suggested by Waze saved me two minutes with the traffic.

 

[EllieB]

There's actual news. Over on We Are Universal Studios Great Britain | Facebook they've sniffed out that Universal has taken the option on the land for the West Gateway Zone.

View attachment 27673View attachment 27674

This is excellent detective work, well done all involved!

Also it's good news, they're clearly still planning for future expansion and projects and that is so much nicer than just having their eye on phase one.

So do we think this is likely car parking space, or future project development space?

 

[masekwm]

This is where the junction will be for the A421 and car parking.