New Universal Theme Park Planned for United Kingdom
Universal Destinations and Experiences has confirmed rumors of a significant land purchase in the United Kingdom, suggesting that Universal Studios Great Britain will soon by announced as Comcast plans expand its theme park empire into Europe, with Bedford Borough as the likely location.
This story started with Alicia Stella over at Orlando Park Stop doing some great investigative journalism–publishing financial records, details of major land purchases, domain registrations by Universal, a construction and development company purchased by Comcast, and more.
All of this points strongly to a 240 acre new Universal Great Britain theme park complex in Bedford, England on an area currently known as the Kempston Hardwick New Settlement, which has had several proposals for future commercial developments over the last few years. Lending further credence to all of this was former Imagineer Jim Shull, who indicated that this was all more than just a rumor.
Less than 24 hours later and the local newspaper where Comcast has purchased the land, The Bedford Independent, has exclusively confirmed the details of the Orlando Park Stop reporting–that Universal has indeed purchased land in the United Kingdom and is exploring as a possible Universal Great Britain theme park site.
A spokesperson from Universal Destinations & Experiences told the Bedford Independent, “We recently acquired land in Bedford [Borough] and are at the early stages of exploring its feasibility for a potential park and resort at this site.
“It will be many months before we are ready to make a decision to proceed and we look forward to engaging with all relevant stakeholders and the local community.” Universal indicated that no creative content of the park has been determined and stressed that “we are still very early in planning this potential project.” (Meaning that the movies and characters showcased in the park have yet to be finalized–but it seems highly likely that Universal Creative already has a pitch–or several–for the site.)
The company confirmed to the Bedford Independent that it is always on the lookout for new park locations around the world and with a large population, strong creative industries, thriving tourism and transportation infrastructure at the heart of Europe, the UK is an ideal destination.
Here’s a map from the Bedford Independent showing where Universal has purchased land in Kempston Hardwick:
The Universal Destinations & Experiences spokesperson told the Bedford Independent that Bedford’s connectivity to London and Europe was a factor in their decision to begin looking at the feasibility of locating Universal Great Britain park in the area.
“We support Bedford’s vision of becoming a prosperous place to live, work and visit and we take a proactive approach to partnering with local communities and stakeholders, like Bedford Borough Council, when pursuing potential projects.”
The Bedford site’s proximity to London, the Harry Potter Studios near Watford, and the cities of Oxford and Cambridge make Bedford the ideal location for tourists in the United Kingdom, according to the Universal spokesperson.
The potential Universal Great Britain site is close to public transport links to Bedford and has already been suggested as a possible site for a business park, likely making approval for a commercial development smoother.
Turning to commentary, the timing of this is really interesting one day after we published Is Universal “Beating” Disney? That article is specifically about Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World, but conceivably could be extended to encompass the broader Universal Destinations & Experiences and Disney Parks & Resorts divisions.
In so doing, it certainly looks like Comcast is being more aggressive than Disney. Whereas the latter is doing a lot of talking and blue sky daydreaming about nebulous future plans to double investment in theme parks to $60 billion over the next decade, Comcast is taking concrete next steps.
It’s not just Epic Universe in Orlando or this potential Universal Great Britain complex, either. There’s also currently the Universal Kids Resort theme park and hotel under construction Frisco, Texas. Then there’s the Universal Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas, Nevada. These are two smaller-scale projects, but they’re indicative of innovative ways that Universal is attempting to enter the attractions market without tentpole tourist destinations.
If this were a real debate, Disney could make the argument that it’s not a matter of Universal surpassing them, but playing catch-up. Disney already has two theme parks in Europe with Disneyland Paris and the Walt Disney Studios Park (well, more like 1.5 parks). Disney also has more theme parks in Asia. And Disney tried (and failed) at the regional entertainment concept back in the 1990s.
That’s a fair point, I guess, but the reality is that both Comcast and Disney have expressed desire to double-down on theme parks as of the last year or so, and only Universal has announced anything real. For its part, Disney has a zoning proposal with fake concept art (DisneylandForward) and a bunch of kinda-sorta-maybe ideas for Florida. Tropical Americas in Animal Kingdom is the closest Walt Disney World has to something tangible, and even the latest tease of that (on ABC’s 20/20) crouched it as “possible.”
Also in fairness, the Walt Disney Company is still putting out fires with its streaming services, attempting to turn a profit with Disney+ and acquire full ownership of Hulu from Comcast. Disney also needs to figure out a strategic partnership for ESPN and decide whether to unload its linear networks. Disney has a significant debt load, which is not ideal in the current interest rate environment. We’ve pointed out all of this before–and how it’s a necessary prerequisite to actually spending on theme parks.
So for now, Disney can talk a big game, but they’re probably still about a year away from being in Comcast’s position and actually doing anything. We theme park fans are an impatient bunch (I’m not getting any younger!) and Disney has already dragged its feet on countless projects, so there’s understandable frustration with this approach, even though it’s an ‘is what it is’ kinda thing.
With regard to commentary about Universal Great Britain, specifically, the project is very intriguing. One reader asked whether it’s a potential threat to Walt Disney World or Universal Orlando. My assumption would be that it is to some degree, but not a major enough one to warrant worry by either operator.
Any theme park in the backyard of Brits is going to siphon off some guests from the United Kingdom. That’s just the practical reality of this type of development, and no amount of clever menu planning for the ride roster will change that. A certain percentage of guests see “Universal” or “Disney” and view all of the parks as interchangeable, and will visit the one most convenient to them. But that already would’ve been happening to some extent–Disneyland Paris has existed in France for over 30 years.
To that point, I’d think that Universal Studios Great Britain would be more of a direct competitor to Disneyland Paris, Alton Towers, Europa Park, Efteling, and other theme parks in Europe. This will almost certainly be more of a worry for Disneyland Paris than it will be for Walt Disney World or Universal Orlando.
With that said–and I apologize for making sweeping generalizations here–I’ve met a significant number of guests from the United Kingdom over the years who would rather travel to Florida than France. This stopped being surprising long ago, because it happens so often. Granted, if someone is talking to me–either via the comments here or in-person–there’s probably a bit of selection bias going on. Nevertheless, it surprises me how many UK theme park guests would rather go all the way to Orlando.
For many of these holidaymakers, it’s because Central Florida is the theme park capital of the world, and they’re able to spend 10-14 days at Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando without running out of things to do. The dynamic is not similar at Disneyland Paris, where you could probably do 4 days. It won’t be the same at Universal Great Britain, either.
Suffice to say, I would imagine that Universal Great Britain will function similarly to Disneyland Paris–expanding the market for theme parks in Europe, and putting a slight dent in numbers for Central Florida, but not a significant enough one to really move the needle. (Honestly, I think the biggest impact on international travel is the exchange rate. The strong dollar does more damage than a new theme park, and currency exchange is, obviously, subject to change.)
Another thing that’ll be interesting is what lessons Universal learns from Disneyland Paris in designing for the weather of Europe. Obviously, there will be more indoor attractions and something like World Bazaar at Tokyo Disneyland or the Arcades at Disneyland Paris to provide a covered shopping area. Something like this also exists in Universal Studios Japan over the main entrance area.
Personally, I think concerns about weather are overstated. Florida is downright miserable for several months of the year, and Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando put up incredible attendance numbers in spite of that. Sure, it’s a different kind of unpleasant–but I’ll take cold and snow over heat and humidity any day. You can always put on more layers–only so many you can remove before park security gets involved.
Joking aside, I think theme park operators with the budget and expertise of Universal or Disney can work around inclimate weather in designing their parks to keep guests comfortable. Equally as important, they have enough drawing power to attract guests year-round. Even if it’s snowy or rainy, if word gets out that crowds are low, people will bear with the weather.
One of the things that’s always intrigued me about Disneyland Paris is maintenance. The park has always had woes in this regard, which are often attributed to neglect. That’s certainly part of it, but I think it might also be fair to say the original design was ridiculously upkeep-intensive, as if the Imagineers designing it were making a park for Southern California rather than France, where it rains and snows. (Designing for SoCal no matter the actual location seems like an ongoing issue.)
There are probably a lot of ways Disneyland Paris can serve as a cautionary tale, and while I won’t pretend to be an expert on Great Britain, the proposed site in Bedford Borough seems very savvy. For its convenient and accessible location, guest demographics, and the lower likelihood of the project being met with intense backlash. Of course, people are alike all over, so there will undoubtedly be some locals who fight this–you’d be hard-pressed to find a development project anywhere that won’t be fought by some subset of the population–but it should have a smoother overall path and higher likelihood of local embrace.
At the very least, we wouldn’t expect Brits to dub Universal Great Britain as a “cultural chernobyl.” It should be a fun project to watch! We hope all of these announcements from Universal create a greater sense of urgency within the Walt Disney Company to stop talking and actually start doing something. Even if streaming, debt, etc. will take another year to sort out, there’s little reason why plans can’t be firmed up and concrete announcements made, so shovel can actually meet soil in late 2024 or 2025 when Disney is ready to start spending again on Parks & Resorts.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of the potential Universal Great Britain theme park complex? Excited for this addition? Think it’ll be a competitor to Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando, or mostly Disneyland Paris and other major theme parks in Europe? What potential lands and/or attractions would you like to see Universal build in the United Kingdom? Think this will be a worthy addition to Universal’s theme parks portfolio? Expect Disney to “respond” with a big announcement of its own? Any questions? We love hearing from readers, so please share any other thoughts or questions you have in the comments below!
It is important when planning any large project in UK that it doesn’t destroy special wildlife habitats, especially if they are protected sites, creates new ones if anything. Universal probably has considered location well compared with Disney. This may seem a trivial issue to international investors who don’t care typically, and the thinking is, select the most pristine area of outstanding natural beauty bulldoze, tarmac over the lot. This doesn’t go down well with British people at all, and the response isn’t trivial, we get highly offended by unnecessary harm to wildlife and actually a cultural tradition, and can be absolute disaster if that attitude isn’t factored in to any large project. Brownfield sites of land are best, if you clean up the land and make it healthy, improve it, you will get a good review, if you ever get caught disturbing wildlife, especially if its with bigmoney, proportional social acceptance risk. Many international investors make this mistake, get good advice, a good 30% of the ruling UK populace don’t like the behaviour. Wishing you well with the project.
Tom, I do think it’s worth pointing out the debtload at Comcast is significantly higher than Dis. I don’t really think Comcast is facing significantly less headwinds, just less under the microscope. Wallstreet pressure on Disney certainly seems to be worse.
It could go both ways and Uni Florida will obviously remain a vastly larger product for the foreseeable future, but I think there will be a bit of UK dilution on interest in adding on a Uni visit. It’s not quite there yet, but the closest Florida gets to not being doable in a 14 day window (and quite expensive to diversify), the more the Brits might pick and chose one site only (WDW).
Website for said project: https://universalukproject.co.uk/
Meanwhile, “our” company would rather spend money on making movies that not many people want to watch.
My daughter and grandson live in The UK not far from Bedford- would love to take him to universal UK in the future. Hope it happens.
Personally, I think a park in the UK would be fabulous! Perhaps it would reduce the crowds in Florida. However, I would rather spend my time in Florida instead of France just because of the weather. Not a fan of the damp UK weather. Now you add into the decision making calculations that Florida is generally cleaner than France and the picture becomes clear. Florida over France anytime. Others will disagree, but that’s ok.
UK resident here… I have visited both Disneyland Paris x 1 and Orlando x 2.
While DLP gave us a closer to home Disney fix we aren’t in a rush to go back…n DLP we didn’t get that ambience, a lot of the rides etc were in French, i knew this in advance but it didn’t feel as immersive as a result. We were lucky enough to visit DLP during a nice weather spell.
Orlando gives us that home away from home feeling, similar enough to UK while still providing the excitement of a new experience in a warm climate.
I like the idea of a UK park IF it comes off providing it caters sufficiently to the weather. Orlando parks were a revelation to me when i first visited… never been to a UK theme park since!
Brilliant news! I hope this does go ahead! I agree this has big market potential here, but will compete with more local parks like the aging Alton Towers, Legoland and maybe Disneyland Paris, not Orlando. I know lots of Brits do go to Paris, but personally I would never choose Disneyland Paris over Orlando because living day in day out in a cold, rainy country, any holiday I take needs to be warm and sunny and Paris’s weather isn’t nice enough to warrant the cost, especially as it’s a smaller park. If I was in France anyway, sure. But if I’m paying to go abroad for a holiday, I’d rather pay a bit more and go to Florida and get the fuller experience with nicer weather. It’s kind of like living in NY and saying would you rather go on holiday in Pennsylvania or Florida? Hmm, I wonder. Orlando might get a bit of bad weather, but that’s not when Brits go since we have half-term breaks in sunny seasons when American kids are in school. So this wouldn’t stop me from going to Orlando but it would give us a great new spot for weekends out or half-terms when we’re not going abroad. It sounds fun. I hope it gets the green light.
Really?? Two major European amusements parks located at Paris and near London where the weather is…..? I’m not in this bussiness but I don’t understand anything
As a Brit I’m excited – and surprised – by the news. However, I’m sceptical about whether this will actually happen – large scale projects are notoriously difficult to build these days in the UK due to planning and environmental considerations, and I’m sure people are already sharpening their pencils for their objection letters.
I find the name interesting; I would have thought “Universal Studios UK” rolls off the tongue a bit better. The term UK is used more often than Great Britain these days (although technically they are not interchangeable, and the residents of Northen Ireland would no doubt remind you).
I think that, whilst it may cannibalise tourism from the UK to Universal Orlando, it is more likely to act as a “feeder” – giving Brits that might not otherwise consider a Universal Orlando visit a taste of what Universal can do, leading them to consider visiting Orlando for a fuller vacation. Hopefully they can build it big enough and unique enough for this to be the case, and I’d be excited for franchises like Paddington or James Bond. Did someone say a 007 re-theme of Fast and Furious? (JOKING). The Secret Life of Paddington?
The weather would be a concern – clearly they will build for the weather, as they have done in Beijing and elsewhere, but I wonder whether it can really be a year-round park. It’s interesting what you say about UK visitors to Disneyland Paris. Despite living in the UK I’ve spent more time at Disney resorts in Japan, Orlando and California than I have there. The weather certainly has a lot to do with it, but also France just isn’t “exotic” enough for us compared to those other places.
British themeparks are suprisingly bad – Merlin (the operators of all major parks) have sweated the assets and neglected any significant investment in sites like Alton Towers which are a shadow of what they once were. I think there’s a huge market for national visitors.
For context on your question why a lot of Brits swerve Paris – France is a lot more exotic to Americans than it is to Brits (we’ve all been dragged there on school holidays or family trips). For us, often doesn’t have the appeal of Orlando. I’d argue DLP’s castle park is totally superior but most Brits assume differently.
That’s an interesting perspective. Honestly, I’ve kind of gotten the opposite impression: that despite the added travel time and cost, a lot of Brits are more comfortable in Florida than France–for the same reason a lot of Americans would be more comfortable in Great Britain than France. It’s less exotic, and more welcoming.
Outliers certainly exist, but by and large, I don’t think the demographics doing theme park vacations are seeking exotic destinations.
Universal distributes the James Bond movies outside of North America now, so that seems like an obvious IP for this. They’ll also need to really outdo the Harry Potter lands in Florida, or else we Americans will never shut up about it. Other than that, I expect it will just be more of the same Super Mario, Minions, Jurassic, and Monsters.
I would imagine given the location that Universal is going to double-down on Harry Potter here. The Harry Potter Studios is one of the top tourist attractions in the UK and this park will have the opportunity to build Hogwarts/Hogsmeade/Diagon Alley in a very authentic setting that already draws many international tourists to the area.
I’ve always thought it counterproductive to open a major Disney/Universal park in a cold-weather area. I can’t imagine what Disneyland Paris attendance is like on dark, blustery Jan/Feb weekdays (not to mention Nov/March/April and half of December), and hypothetically the same challenges or worse would apply to this UK location. Six Flags locations in the Northern US close for the winter and even parks in fairly temperate areas like San Antonio (SeaWorld, Six Flags Fiesta Texas) close or shift to weekends-only in the Winter months.
I suppose this Universal park could follow that same model of targeted closings but I can’t think of a park at this (presumed) scale and ambition that’s not open 365 days a year.
I would go In Florida rather than France just because Paris weather is mostly bad like in the Uk. I wish they build somewhere warmer like
Spain or pair France really in the Uk price will be super higher and food quality super low as always
I am always cynical about new parks of scale being mentioned in the UK. Especially when Tussauds/Busch project of Portaventura was built in Spain when Festival Park at Woburn fell through, and the Epcot copy in Corby fell through despite Margaret Thatcher personally backing it.
I knew the London resort would never happen and look at how much money was wasted.
But I am really hopeful of this. The theme parks in the UK are dire. Legoland is probably our best, but so low capacity and Merlin has run it into the ground.
Alton Towers is too spread out and not great for those who are not little ones or thrill seekers (I am, but too big for most coasters in Britain sadly).
Blackpool is fun, but not really a theme park.
Meanwhile, in addition to Disneyland Paris, Europe has a number of World class parks such as Europa Park, Phantasialand, De Efteling, even Portaventura and Parc Asterix are better than anything in the UK.
But if I am honest, I do not know if the UK can sustain a world class theme park. But given their expansion in Frisco Texas and Las Vegas, this may just happen.
Fingers crossed