Universal Great Britain - Speculation & Rumors

[Dinosaurus]

Are we down to 4 residential homes now?

A tenant at one of the houses on Manor Road has stated that their landlord has asked them to move out in 6 months as they're also selling.

 

[masekwm]

Are we down to 4 residential homes now?

On the curve of Manor Road, there's one further property, I've had an alert on this since end of June.



Not heard anything official on the next three:



From the remaining properties, those in red have been sold and 1 of the others, which one, I'm not sure possibly the end one. Leaving with 6 no news on:

 

[rob@rar]

Incendio! Lightning sets tree on fire in the outdoor queue for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey in Orlando. When people say how poor the weather is in Bedford, it might be worth comparing the number of lightning strikes in Central Florida with Central Bedfordshire!

I saw a weather alert a couple of days ago for Orlando stating that the "feels like" temperature was as high as 112 degrees (that's Fahrenheit, not new money). I'm not going to be tied to school holidays after this year, so never again will I have to endure a Central Floridian summer. One of the things I'm really looking forward to in Bedford is a cold Winter's day, hitting the rides with not much of a queue, in a cozy jacket underneath a crisp blue sky. Bliss!

 

[xtpower]

I just watched a doc on the making of VelociCoaster. As they were showing the bluesky and concept stages I just realised that right now Universal Creative are doing the exact same things for UGB. It's hard to believe still that we're actually getting a Universal Theme Park.

 

[rob@rar]

It's hard to believe still that we're actually getting a Universal Theme Park.

I’m comfortably in to the “yup, it’s coming” state of mind. I drove along the A421 a couple of times this week and I’m making a mental note of journey times in typical M25 and M1 rush hour traffic conditions: one hour and five minutes from leaving home to reaching where the Universal slip road will be, and a bit quicker to get home after the evening peak. That’ll do nicely, considering my previous theme park journeys took at least four hours (to DLP when the Eurostar used to depart from London Waterloo) and usually much longer than that.

For me the main question I’m interested in right now is how much the annual passes will be, and whether the top tier will offer free parking, early entry and Express Passes after 3pm.

 

[crawleyboy01]

That's what im wondering. Its all exciting.

 

[xtpower]

Seen a fair few comments and articles about traffic worries, so I decided to delve into the traffic appendices and traffic PDF's. There's a fair few interesting nuggets in there.

They want to do shuttle buses from MK railway station:


They've been doing prep work for much before Alicia spilled the beans:


One of the PDF's in the Environment Statement appendices (Chapter 4 Appendix 5) shows huge detailed pictures of the new roads Universal want.


Just posting one picture as an example. The rest can be found in the appendix 5 zip file, 05.1g - 4.5.1.7.0 Appendix 5.1 Transport Assessment Annex 6 - Illustrative Highways Arrangement.pdf.

 

[tommyhawkins]

Of the 17 properties on Manor road, how many of them are now sold?

 

[xtpower]

Of the 17 properties on Manor road, how many of them are now sold?

I'm not entirely sure, @masekwm would probably be the one who knows, he's on the ball when it comes to the property ownership.

Though I do believe the Vine Cottages that would need to go to straighten Manor road have been sold.

 

[tommyhawkins]

I'm not entirely sure, @masekwm would probably be the one who knows, he's on the ball when it comes to the property ownership.

Though I do believe the Vine Cottages that would need to go to straighten Manor road have been sold.

I am talking about the 17 on the road, the ugly cottages all the way down to Askern House with the moat in the garden - as those have have their own analysis in the application

 

[xtpower]

I am talking about the 17 on the road, the ugly cottages all the way down to Askern House with the moat in the garden - as those have have their own analysis in the application

Yea, @masekwm is the guy to ask. Some have sold, but all 17? I don't think so.

 

[ProjectUniversal]

Seen a fair few comments and articles about traffic worries, so I decided to delve into the traffic appendices and traffic PDF's. There's a fair few interesting nuggets in there.

They want to do shuttle buses from MK railway station:
View attachment 27492

They've been doing prep work for much before Alicia spilled the beans:
View attachment 27493

One of the PDF's in the Environment Statement appendices (Chapter 4 Appendix 5) shows huge detailed pictures of the new roads Universal want.
View attachment 27494

Just posting one picture as an example. The rest can be found in the appendix 5 zip file, 05.1g - 4.5.1.7.0 Appendix 5.1 Transport Assessment Annex 6 - Illustrative Highways Arrangement.pdf.

Someone at the meeting in Stewartby raised a good point with this roundabout as all the school buses use that route from the villages to Wootton Upper School and with this design if that roundabout gets busy which it will, what impact will that have on the buses?

 

[xtpower]

Someone at the meeting in Stewartby raised a good point with this roundabout as all the school buses use that route from the villages to Wootton Upper School and with this design if that roundabout gets busy which it will, what impact will that have on the buses?

The school buses use the A421 slip-road that doesn't exist yet? I jest, but that roundabout is part of the new Slip-road that's coming.

 

[ProjectUniversal]

That roundabout will split up what we (locals) call the old a421, a busy little local route that the school buses use.

I can't remember if you are local or not XT but for everyone's knowledge the old 421 runs parallel and very close in some places to the new A421 bypass. If you look on google earth you'll see it.

The old 421 will feed onto that roundabout as well as the incoming park traffic (excluding M1 traffic). Now personally I don't much use that road so doesn't really concern me but as a local I can see the point that it may well affect school buses.

 

[xtpower]

That roundabout will split up what we (locals) call the old a421, a busy little local route that the school buses use.

I can't remember if you are local or not XT but for everyone's knowledge the old 421 runs parallel and very close in some places to the new A421 bypass. If you look on google earth you'll see it.

The old 421 will feed onto that roundabout as well as the incoming park traffic (excluding M1 traffic). Now personally I don't much use that road so doesn't really concern me but as a local I can see the point that it may well affect school buses.

No, not local, so the nuances of the roads is beyond me at times. So your explanations do help.

Honestly I think outside of having access to their traffic flow models and simulations it's hard for us laymen to figure out how these new additions will currently affect the way roads are used now. As I've found there's a fair few drivers who for whatever reason just hate taking the simple and direct routes. That and the counter-cyclical nature of traffic for a Theme Park (of Universal's stature) makes giving concrete statements on the degree it will affect current traffic (without those flow models etc etc) very hard.

 

[tommyhawkins]

Someone at the meeting in Stewartby raised a good point with this roundabout as all the school buses use that route from the villages to Wootton Upper School and with this design if that roundabout gets busy which it will, what impact will that have on the buses?

The roundabout they haven't built will be used by a school buses?They estimate 983 cars/taxis will arrive between 8 &9am and 335 between 3&4pm on an average day (mid week assessment). So 16cars a minute and 6 a min in afternoon. They have also gone into fine detail about the length of queues at these roundabouts and slip road, it's also within capacity for build out

So we need to be taking the "concerns" with a giant truck load of salt. There's plenty of noise, let's look for the signal. An opposition politician who is not responsible for the constituency they are building the park in may well be just posturing and trying to score political points rather than expressing genuine concern, and really it's her duty as an MP to read all the documents and inform herself before raising questions supposedly on her constituents behalf.

This just seems to be similar to the news reports from the manor road residents who chose ignorance and/or rhetoric to mostly achieve their goal of a higher buyout price.

 

[xtpower]

The roundabout they haven't built will be used by a school buses?They estimate 983 cars/taxis will arrive between 8 &9am and 335 between 3&4pm on an average day (mid week assessment). So 16cars a minute and 6 a min in afternoon. They have also gone into fine detail about the length of queues at these roundabouts and slip road, it's also within capacity for build out

So we need to be taking the "concerns" with a giant truck load of salt. There's plenty of noise, let's look for the signal. An opposition politician who is not responsible for the constituency they are building the park in may well be just posturing and trying to score political points rather than expressing genuine concern, and really it's her duty as an MP to read all the documents and inform herself before raising questions supposedly on her constituents behalf.

This just seems to be similar to the news reports from the manor road residents who chose ignorance and/or rhetoric to mostly achieve their goal of a higher buyout price.

Alot of these concerns are for villages or roads that are way out of Universal's purview. You give them answers for the main roads and then suddenly you get a half dozen new places and roads thrown at you. I appreciate these concerns are legit for the roads around the Park and adjacent villages, but no matter how much you reassure them that these issues are covered and Universal have a plan they just come up with new concerns.