Vice president of external affairs for Universal Destinations & Experiences John McReynolds says the proposed UK theme park could “unlock enormous economic potential and boost growth” on a recent tour of Bedford.
Meeting with Bedford’s mayor Tom Wooton they together visited McReynolds was joined by Bedford’s mayor Tom Wootton. Together, they visited the La Piazza cafe, a garden centre called Not Another Jungle, and the Charisma gift shop.
Bedford Borough Council posted a press release highlighting that the tour was to explore “key local businesses and how Universal’s proposed investment will help drive the developments that are central to the town’s economic growth and revitalisation”.
“A world-class Universal theme park and resort could help unlock enormous economic potential and boost growth for Bedford and the UK,” he said.
“The support we have received from Mayor Tom, the Bedford borough and the many community members we have actively engaged with throughout this process has been nothing short of incredible.”
Wootton said: “A project of this scale has the potential to be transformative for Bedford borough and deliver significant benefits for the UK economy.
“Universal create thousands of jobs, help to drive footfall to existing local businesses, and unlock major investment into other local enterprises and infrastructure through their supply chain and companies who want to be based around them.”
With the excitement of this project becoming an official set-in-stone event forever growing the economic benefits for the UK would be astronomical, to the tune of nearly £50 billion to be exact and that’s during the construction phase and for the first 20 years of operations.
20,000 jobs would be created throughout construction and the resort could create 8000 new jobs once up and running.
After a very successful public consultation for its planned theme park, the plans have been endorsed by locals and leaders of six local authorities.
The new government is in the process of meeting with Universal representatives to discuss the plans and this pipedream is becoming closer and closer to becoming a reality for many excited UK attractions fans.
After a recent visit to Universal Studios Orlando, the quality of the overall product in the UK market would be a gamechanger, so much so that Merlin (arguably their closest rivals in the UK space) would have to considerably invest more in their portfolio of parks to have a chance of keeping up with the giants that are Universal.
Universal has the better product, the better theming and the bigger brand appeal and they will bring their highest standards to the UK for this new development. For many years the UK has suffered from questionable investments across Merlin portfolio that aren’t always up to the standards to which they were originally proposed.
With rumoured budget cuts and money going elsewhere for the company it’ll be very interesting to see how the company handles the very noisy neighbours when they arrive at our shores.
