by It’s the kind of story that makes you glance at the top of the page, to check it’s not April Fools’ Day. Late last year, a major American entertainment corporation announced its ambition to build a huge new theme park in a medium-sized market town, just north of Luton, just north-east of Milton Keynes. Here, in a parcel of land shaped by the A421 and A6, close to Wixams Retirement Village and the Sainsburys distribution centre, would come a gleaming technopolis; great music and lights, rides and refreshments, huge food courts and thousands of happy visitors. Where exactly? Bedford.
Ha ha – good one.
Except this was true: Universal Destinations and Experiences – the famous US creator of fun lands and worlds of wonder, which left its trail screaming-if you will-go faster on Japan, China and Singapore, as well as. in his own country – it seems he intended to expand his theme park portfolio to Bedfordshire.
Now Universal is talking to the local community about its plans to revive the old Stewartby Brickworks – a 476-acre site, on the south-west side of the town, which was one of the world’s largest working zones before it closed. 2008. A pair of consultation events are scheduled to take place over the next week (today and April 16), and those who wish to participate online can do so via a website (universalukproject.co.uk) who asks how the project can. be implemented in a way that will benefit the town and the area.
“We are beginning a period of public participation in relation to the planning proposal for this potential project,” Universal’s statement on the website explains. “We are particularly interested in understanding what is important to you as we consider this potential plan, and how we can best celebrate the history and heritage of the area.”
It is perhaps easy, at this point, to make some not very serious suggestions. Perhaps Universal Bedford (name to be confirmed) may be rooted in traces of the lace-making that excelled in the town in the Middle Ages (and long after). Perhaps he could tip his hat to the wool trade; one of the medieval remains of the area. And if you’re going to add to the old brickwork, why not restore some of that aesthetic too – recognizing the site’s once huge chimneys, four of which were recommended for conservation status after the 2008 closure, rather than being demolished in 2021 until now. a few aliens and a boy wizard too, of course.
But Bedford isn’t looking for such self-deprecating comments. Bedford Borough Mayor Tom Wootton has been an enthusiastic supporter of the idea, arguing recently that “a Universal Theme Park and Resort has the potential to be transformative for our area. It is a significant opportunity to create jobs [and] promote tourism, all of which benefit local businesses.”
Universal, for its part, is just as serious. This is a significant proposal, although still at the drawing board stage (there is no planning permission at this stage), that it could be transformative for one of Britain’s most underrated places.
There would definitely be more money coming out. Including its sites in the Far East, Universal’s theme park division generates around US$7.5billion (£6bn) in revenue per year.
It is not as if there is no precedent. Ask the nearest child what the word “Orlando” means, and they’ll wax lyrical about fairytale castles and talking mice. Although only the fourth largest dot on the map of the Sunshine State (behind Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa), the city in the heart of Florida is certainly the most famous; a Xanadu with rollercoasters.
Orlando rises out of the swamps of Florida
It wasn’t always like that. As with most major cities in the United States, you can’t go much deeper in history than three centuries. But in the case of Orlando, the archaeological trench is much shallower. Once you’ve gone beyond the original story – the haphazard Spanish exploration of the 16th and 17th centuries; forced removal of the indigenous Seminole population from much of the land in the 18th and 19th – not much happened in the center of the Florida peninsula until the first acorn of Orlando, the village of Jernigan, was established in 1843. From there, acorns were developed. The city was a slow process, hampered by the Great Freeze of 1894-95, which destroyed most of the citrus groves in the area, and only really kicked in with the arrival of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1926. Even then, war and the Great Depression intervened and, as late as the 1950s, Orlando’s main purpose was to support the army and air force bases that grew up on the outskirts.
It was the dawn of the theme park age that changed everything. In 1965, Walt Disney announced plans to build a massive physical embodiment of his cinematic world in Orlando – having chosen its inland location over the more hurricane-prone Miami and Tampa. When it opened on October 1, 1971, Walt Disney World was not groundbreaking – Disney had already launched Disneyland in California in 1955 – but it helped revolutionize life in Orlando. Similar entities would follow, in the city, or on its edges – SeaWorld Orlando (in 1973) and Legoland Florida (in 2011), as well as Universal’s own sought-after weight at home, the twin titans of Universal Studios Florida (in 1990) and Universal Islands Adventure (in 1999). The latter now hosts the popular Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was added in 2010. A third launch in the city, Universal Epic Universe, has been delayed by the pandemic, but is set to open on next year.
The scale of success is in the numbers. Orlando attracts approximately 75 million visitors each year, the vast majority of whom go to the entertainment areas. Especially Disney World; now a sprawling complex of four separate theme parks and two water parks – which draws in 21 million tourists, of its own eternal will.
Universal Bedford fanfare or pie-in-the-sky thinking?
Of course, Bedford would argue that he does not need such oppression. At least not in historical terms. After all, it was there on the map long before 1843. Its name is thought to be a combination of the Saxon chieftain Beda, and a point on the Great Ouse where those early Britons would cross the river. It was certainly around the year 796, when (probably) the King of Offaly (he of the Clyde) was buried in his soil. It was a border town in the Viking era, situated on the border between Anglo-Saxon Mercia and the easternmost area of the Danelaw, where Norse rule prevailed. Its medieval fortress was so early that it arrived, built in 919, and was the victim of a Viking attack. The second version, built around 1100, was a little more durable, but it was also destroyed, in 1224. Four hundred years later, the Puritan writer John Bunyan was imprisoned in Bedford Prison, and he wrote his main speech. The Pilgrim’s Progress in one of their cells. In short, Bedford needs no help with history.
Would all this be ruined by screaming teenagers on falling tower rides, and the smell of pricy doughnuts? Would the town be transformed with a theme park? Definitely.
Orlando’s rise out of the swamps of Florida is twofold. One is just down the M1, on the outskirts of Watford, where the Warner Bros Studio Tour has been another site of the Harry Potter pilgrimage since 2012. Few would argue that it would attract 6,000 paying customers. per day. Hit.
Another case study remains on the other side of the English Channel; one that is perhaps more relevant. The news that a diversified American conglomerate is rethinking its flashy logo and looking to bring new revenue streams to an unreliable place has made headlines before. Forty years ago, Disney was mulling over potential locations for a European theme park – eventually, in 1992, eschewing the Mediterranean sunshine of Alicante for the rainier skies above Chessy, east of Paris. Disneyland Paris has now proven its value, but only so far after a two-year period as “Euro Disney” where the park, amid various troubles, came relatively close to being an expensive flop. Its rise to its 21st-century status as Europe’s most visited tourist destination (400 million visitors and counting) is stodgy at first – but such success cannot be guaranteed.
Will we, 32 years from now, be marveling at Universal Bedford’s latest exciting addition? Will this landmark apparition really pay homage to the area’s industrial history, or are proposals like these merely corporate chatter to ensure the right boxes are ticked on the right pages? Will Bedford expanded into Florida’s best cousin; a range of water parks and neon sign mega-hotels around that original Saxon core? Or is this destined to be one of those pie-in-the-sky pieces of thinking that never goes beyond conference room conversations? At this point, the opinions of a Hogwarts alumnus who can see the future could be quite useful.
