US company had been expected to make final decision on 283ha project by the end of last year
The US company behind plans to build Europe’s largest theme park on a 283ha site in Bedfordshire is having “productive conversations” with the UK government, it has said.
Florida-based Universal Destinations and Experiences (UDE announced its plans for a Universal Studios theme park in the UK last year after buying the brownfield land and has been preparing a planning application.
The firm’s parent company, multinational media giant Comcast, said in May that it hoped to make a final decision on the scheme by the end of 2024.
A report in Bloomberg earlier this month suggested chancellor Rachel Reeves could endorse the project in her speech on the economy this week, where she gave government backing to a number of large infrastructure schemes including a third runway at Heathrow Airport.
Blake Stephenson, the Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, where the park could be built, said in the House of Commons yesterday that people may have been surprised that Reeves did not mention the project and asked when talks would conclude.
Chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones replied: “I hope to come back shortly with updates”, although he did not provide a date.
A spokesperson for UDE said: “We are having productive conversations with the UK government and will have more to share at the appropriate time.”
Both the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which is the sponsor for the project, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which is understood to be overseeing the planning process, have declined to comment.
UDE has claimed the park, which is expected to have a construction value of several billion pounds, could provide 28,000 jobs and £14bn in tax revenue to government coffers in its first 20 years of operation.
It is being envisaged as a direct competitor and would be larger than Disneyland Paris, which is currently the most visited tourist attraction in Europe.
The firm’s 541-acre Universal Studios Florida is among the most visited theme parks in the world and was the first of a chain which now includes parks in Los Angeles, Japan, China and Singapore.
Last July, leaders of six local authorities signed a letter urging Keir Starmer to green light the project, which Bedford borough mayor Tom Wootton said would be a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure transformational economic growth and development for the region”.
The venture might have been given a further boost in December following news that plans for a major rival, the £3.5bn London Resort which would have been built on the Thames Estuary, have been scrapped.
The 465ha park, which had also been billed as Europe’s largest, was first proposed more than 14 years ago but the High Court has ordered the company behind the scheme to be wound up.
Its planning application had been withdrawn in 2022 after Natural England raised concerns that its former industrial site on the Swanscombe Peninsula provided “ideal conditions for a unique variety of wildlife,” including one of the UK’s rarest spiders.
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