Easy Ride: Labour Clears Planning Obstacles To Make Way For Theme Park Britain

Illustrations by Tracy Worrall

9 min read04 June

Labour is proudly overturning decades of planning obstacles suffered by theme parks to make way for a new Universal resort in Bedford. Sienna Rodgers explores how ministers are getting it over the line and what the park will offer

“Hands up who has been to Peppa Pig World?” Boris Johnson asked the Confederation of British Industry conference in 2021. “I was initially quite hesitant, but I found it was very much my kind of place,” the then-prime minister told the bewildered crowd.

It was a speech that went down badly with business leaders and MPs who criticised it as “rambling” and “embarrassing”. Keir Starmer was not impressed either, confirming that he had been to the family amusement park but found it “dreadful”.

The Labour leader has changed his tune on theme parks as Prime Minister, however: he is now putting them front-and-centre of his ‘builders, not blockers’ growth agenda, having announced in April that he had closed the deal on a new Universal entertainment resort in Bedfordshire. Set to open in 2031, it will be the first Universal-branded site in Europe, following its parks in Orlando, Hollywood, Beijing, Osaka and Singapore.

In creating a theme park and 500-room hotel in a 476-acre entertainment resort complex, the plan is to generate 20,000 jobs during the construction phase, with an on-site peak of about 5,000, then have 8,000 jobs ongoing once the resort is open. Universal also says its projects usually create 1.5 indirect jobs for every direct one.

The government has declared that the project will bring an estimated £50bn boost to the UK economy by 2055. So, why the UK?

“We have been looking to build a Universal Park in Europe for decades now,” Page Thompson, president of new ventures at Universal Destinations and Experiences, tells The House.

“We picked the UK because of the large population, the large tourism, the strength of the creative industries in the country, and the demonstrated fact that people in the UK love our products, because 1.2 million people travel to Orlando every year to visit our parks,” he explains.

“The UK really should have two or three of the top theme parks in the world, and currently they don’t have any in the top 25. So, we hope to fill that gap.”

Why has the UK fallen short so far? Chris Curtis, the Labour MP for Milton Keynes North, points to planning restrictions as the answer.

Curtis is a huge supporter of the Universal project. In fact, having first been elected to Parliament in July, he has already reached a career high as a theme park enthusiast whose constituency is near the new resort.

“It’s very exciting,” says the MP, who is such a fan of theme parks that he has travelled the world to visit them. “It shows what you can achieve when you have the public and private sector working together to move barriers out of the way to get investment into the UK.”

Curtis even gave an interview to roller coaster YouTuber DigitalDan – conducted in deck chairs, next to mesh perimeter fencing, at the site of the new project – in which he enthused about how the “joyful, fun” project would “help rebuild a sense of national confidence”.

“Now you’ve got a government determined to ram it though the planning process”

The co-chair of the Labour Growth Group believes Britain’s theme parks tell a compelling story about our planning laws.

He points to the early days of Thorpe Park: in transforming the site from a gravel pit into the country’s first major theme park, its owner was forced to submit hundreds of planning applications to secure permission for each individual attraction. Plans including an ice rink, water flume and other rides were rejected in the lead-up to Thorpe Park’s opening in 1979, and the long-running battle with the local council meant it could only initially operate as an educational water sports park. It was only in the late 80s that it was able to really get going as a theme park.

As writer James O’Malley put it in his Odds and Ends of History newsletter: “By contrast, Disney in Florida is virtually entirely autonomous, so can build what it likes as it effectively governs its own territory. No wonder millions more families take their money to Orlando every year instead of Staines-upon-Thames.”

Then there is Alton Towers. Situated between the small village of Alton and the hamlet Farley, the Staffordshire theme park is in a conservation area and must remain in keeping with the surroundings: it cannot build above the tree line. This forces the theme park to innovate – signature rides such as Oblivion, the world’s first vertical drop coaster, instead go underground – but does present a significant restriction. It is always vulnerable to noise complaints, too; a voiceover that told riders “don’t look down” had to be scrapped after it was deemed to have encouraged screaming.

Most recently, plans for a “London Resort” theme park – dubbed a “Dartford Disneyland” – were announced in 2012 but never got off the ground. Like the Ebbsfleet Garden City project, which promised 15,000 homes and delivered just 3,000, the new theme park was thwarted by jumping spiders that led the area to be designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) by Natural England.

“Now you’ve got a government determined to ram it though the planning process,” Curtis says cheerfully of the new Universal park.

New projects can gain permission via regular local authority planning applications or through a Development Consent Order, which is granted by the relevant secretary of state. The latter is a streamlined process but still takes several years. This is the route the London Resort tried to take before failing.

So keen is the government to get the Universal project done, The House understands that it drew Universal’s attention to a third option: a Special Development Order (SDO). This path, rarely used, still entails scrutiny but cuts through layers of bureaucracy and removes much of the risk for investors.

The Universal proposals are thus technically pending a planning decision by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government – but there is little chance of that putting a stop to the plans.

“I’m very confident it will be issued,” Labour MP for Bedford, Mohammad Yasin, says of permission. “It should be straightforward.” Universal is finalising its proposal right now, intending to submit it in June, and hopes to get approval later this year.

Yasin does note some locals may have concerns about traffic, but says, “we are in touch with the Universal Studios team – they come to my office, we meet on a regular basis”. Key to securing the approval of residents and authorities, as well as the crucial SDO, are the infrastructure plans wrapped in with the new park. The government has agreed to build a slip road directly into the resort, and local train stations will be upgraded to accommodate the increased travel.

While the UK may lag behind the rest of the world in terms of amusement park rankings, as Thompson notes, we are already host to over a dozen major ones. How will they feel about their new competition?

“We look upon the arrival of a Universal park as an opportunity to raise the profile of our industry within the UK,” says Richard Mancey, the managing director of Paultons Park.

“Millions of foreign visitors are going to come to the UK to see this, many will be theme park enthusiasts, and we think [they] will take the opportunity of visiting other parks in the UK during their visit. We hope to capitalise on this. When Disneyland Paris opened, the smaller French parks saw an uplift in visitor numbers.”

Paultons is most famous for Peppa Pig World, a themed area in the park based on the children’s cartoon. (When interviewed by The House, Peppa said she had not met the scruffy-haired Johnson – perhaps he was not willing to do the queue for the meet-and-greet, which is a little longer than for the other amusements.) Mancey confirms the park will stay family-focused, but would like to see parents with older children – up to 15 years old – visit. “We are actively installing rides that will appeal to the older children over the next few years,” he says.

The MD insists visitor numbers have bounced back since the pandemic, but when The House visited Paultons Park – for research purposes – it was thoroughly enjoyable partly because there were so few other people there. It was a sunny Sunday in May, yet most rides required no wait or just five minutes. Staff members said it was an unusually quiet day but also admitted they never have particularly long queues.

The wholesome Paultons was immaculate, with helpful staff everywhere, cleaning up tables as soon as they were vacated. It was more akin to the pristine Universal Orlando than the shabbier offerings of some of the UK’s adult-focused theme parks.

“We have taken robotics to a level that no one’s ever seen before”

Universal anticipates 8.5 million visitors to the new park in its first year, and that 32 per cent of these will come from overseas. “We think it’s really going to benefit everybody in the entire industry,” says Thompson.

Speculation around what potential visitors can expect from the new Universal theme park is rife online. Asked for details, he refuses to name any IPs that will feature and says some discussions are still ongoing. But he confirms it will have a distinct British identity: “It’ll be a combination of the greatest properties we have in the Universal library and some UK properties that will be unique to that park as well, as well as all sorts of touches and references to the great cultural history of the UK.”

The president of new ventures promises innovations. In Orlando’s latest theme park, Universal Epic Universe, there are drone dragons flying over the park and a Frankenstein’s monster who walks towards visitors. “We have taken robotics to a level that no one’s ever seen before,” he says.

There are not just jobs for performers, directors, writers and hospitality workers on the cards – engineering talent will also be needed. Universal is developing relationships with local colleges and universities to establish training programmes for a homegrown workforce.

Thompson appears to promise the American dream: “Our company is the kind of place where you can come in, start as an hourly worker, and rise to a high management position in the company. About 50 per cent of our managers here in Orlando started as hourly workers.”

There is certainly no shortage of enthusiasm for the project in Parliament. Yasin is just as positive as Curtis, describing the new theme park as “like a dream coming true”. “It will help us boost our town centre which is struggling a bit,” he says. “Bedford will be on the map of the world.”

Additional reporting by Sophie Church