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Universal considering UK theme park in Bedford

It's crazy how much traction this news has gained.

Most of my family have been discussing it. They are so far removed from 99.9% of any other theme park related news and rumours. It's now plastered all over mainstream social media pages.

There's no way Universal would need to worry too much about Merlin. Universal's brand is so big that it alone markets itself. And the IPs they could introduce to the UK would be so much bigger than any we've seen before. By quite a margin too.

This is exactly the sort of park that the UK has been crying out for. Even if London Resort happened, it wouldn't even get near what Universal could achieve.
 
Nicky Borrill said:
Thanks Nitefly, I had assumed you were somehow getting this info from Companies House, I hadn't considered the Land Registry, despite it being the obvious place to look. Mostly because, for some reason, it won't accept my email when I try and register.

The only reason I'm so interested is because the Park Stop video suggested there was other land acquired at the same time as they acquired Cloud Wing, unless I misunderstood. If it is the case I'd love to know where the other land is. (It could also explain the quoted cost Matt references.)
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It doesn’t necessarily confirm or debunk anything, but the parcel of land that wasn’t circled blue in my previous post is subject to an application for a transfer of whole - which suggests a change will happen to the registered proprietor of at least that land.

Acquiring the Cloud Wing company alone would have put the land within the ownership of the Comcast group. So it’s not strictly just been the purchase of the company, although the transfer of land between group companies is not usually subject to SDLT as long as basic requirements are met - in which case it may just be a case of ‘tidying up’.

Going further, without a full review of the title, it’s not 100% clear that all of the land was actually fully owned by the Cloud Wing group. As it is, only part of the puzzle is evidenced by the ParkStop article - the title number they show in the article is for the land I circled blue in my previous post. The different parcels may have been owned by different owners entirely, perhaps each parcel being subject to a promotion agreement for the purposes of earlier development proposals.

It’s also interesting (to me…) that the applications have been made by two different law firms. Usually, the ‘acquiring party’ deals with all transactions - but not always if there is a chargee or other more complicated dealings are going on.

Perhaps this is related to and explains the reference to ‘acquired land’… but perhaps not.

Edited to correct my inability to recall that the colour I had meant to refer to is blue, not yellow!
 
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Nitefly said:
It doesn’t necessarily confirm or debunk anything, but the parcel of land that wasn’t circled yellow in my previous post is subject to an application for a transfer of whole - which suggests a change will happen to the registered proprietor of at least that land.

Acquiring the Cloud Wing company alone would have put the land within the ownership of the Comcast group. So it’s not strictly just been the purchase of the company, although the transfer of land between group companies is not usually subject to SDLT as long as basic requirements are met - in which case it may just be a case of ‘tidying up’.

Going further, without a full review of the title, it’s not 100% clear that all of the land was actually fully owned by the Cloud Wing group. As it is, only part of the puzzle is evidenced by the ParkStop article - the title number they show in the article is for the land I circled yellow in my previous post. The different parcels may have been owned by different owners entirely, perhaps each parcel being subject to a promotion agreement for the purposes of earlier development proposals.

It’s also interesting (to me…) that the applications have been made by two different law firms. Usually, the ‘acquiring party’ deals with all transactions - but not always if there is a chargee or other more complicated dealings are going on.

Perhaps this is related to and explains the reference to ‘acquired land’… but perhaps not.
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Sorry to be a pain, but could you highlight this part on the map, I think you're referring to one of the parts not highlighted in yellow that contain lakes, but there's multiple parts like that, so just to be clear.

Thanks for the explanation though, it really helps. :)
 
Nicky Borrill said:
Sorry to be a pain, but could you highlight this part on the map, I think you're referring to one of the parts not highlighted in yellow that contain lakes, but there's multiple parts like that, so just to be clear.

Thanks for the explanation though, it really helps. :)
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Urgh sorry for the conclusion - I said yellow, when I meant blue. That’s what early morning posting does to you - derp derp 🙈

See my edits to my posts above 👍

For added clarity, the area coloured yellow that is not circled blue in the image I posted is the area that is subject to the application for the transfer of whole.
 
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Decided to pop to Kempston Hardwick train station and get a picture of the field. Huge area.

Look, it's about a 5 minute drive for me, nice and easy.
a9e2b9675e62b126430b126854d44b60.jpg


Sent from my SM-S901B using Tapatalk
 
spicy said:
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Ah there it is. Wondered how long it would take before the media started writing that again.
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Ahhh FFS. I don't know why it's so annoying that they do this, I mean fundamentally, it is an alternative to Disney of comparative quality... But it is annoying as hell.
 
It's the answer to Disneyland I'm guessing because it's the nearest branded theme park to the UK. It's a competitor of sorts as well. It's not really going to answer Universal Orlando as that's miles away.

It's not even that far from me, looking forward to this. I still expect it to be worse than all the other Universal parks (and I will say this even though I've not been to the others) though because we in England just do mediocrity in regards to basically everything 😆
 
I'm surprised it took this long but still 🤦

The "answer to Universal" is weird. This term should be used to compare an equal or outdo the 'best'. (unless it misses the mark, hello again you silly London Resort).

It doesn't matter which Disney resort or park. People will default in their minds to whichever is relevent to them or their perceived crown jewel. And that's assuming knowledge of more than one, such as those in Asia or multiple in America. It's the entity on a pedestal that Universal will be compared against by the common majority.

I haven't been to Singapore but based on reviews I recon Universal can do better so we won't have the worse of that group. Assuming they don't go the kids park route after all.

The answer to Merlin intentionally holding the country back for so long is my true benchmark. I'm especially keen to see if they build affordable hotels for adults, not all with beds for kids, amenities open after park close, and enough time given to cleaning staff to do a decent job.
 
So... time has passed, letters have gone out... I'm wondering how the news is being recieved by 'none goons' living in the area?

@Mushroom or anybody else in the area want to give us the lowdown on the mood locally? Because at this stage, that's massively important.
 
Nicky Borrill said:
That trademark was filed in Nov 2022!!! Confirming our suspicions that they've been working on this a long time, are further along than suggested, and have managed to keep it under wraps for quite some time!!!
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Expires in 2032, wonder if it will get used before then.
 
Shawn from Theme Park Worldwide has uploaded a video about the Universal site, including aerial footage of the land (2:00 onwards) and some info on the surrounding infrastructure that's likely to be removed/improved should the project go ahead.

 
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I wanted to get an idea if the scale of this land compared to Florida. So I did some 'google earthing.'

This is the UK parcel of land, at around 469 Acres

UK.jpg

This is pretty much all of the main Orlando site, including Volcano Bay but excluding Epic Universe and Endless Summer. It is a total of 697 Acres.

OrlandoWhole.jpg

Out of interest I wondered how big one park was, so this is Islands of Adventure at just 84.4 Acres!

IOA.jpg

This is the interesting one... This is:

  • Islands of Adventure
  • City Walk
  • 3 Hotels
  • Water Park
  • Parking Garages (that's what they call multi story car parks in the states right?)

All coming in at just 357 acres!!!

IOA-3Hotels-waterpark-citywalk.jpg

Given an outdoor waterpark is out of the question in the UK, and there's still 112 acres to spare, they could easily fit 2 parks, a City Walk and 3 or 4 hotels on this land!!!!

When I started measuring this, I genuinely did not expect to discover that the land was big enough for all of that... I was thinking maybe a park, 2 hotels and a city walk! But it's huge. In the back of my mind I'd also been wondering if maybe they hadn't gone public already, before that video, as they'd hoped to acquire more of the empty land around the site. Now I doubt that's even necessary!
 
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