Universal Great Britain

[Altonsky]

Worth noting from the speech yesterday was that there was specific focus on the Oxford-Cambridge Arc/supercluster (Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board | Creating a World-Leading Cluster) - Reeves: I am going further and faster to kick start the economy.

This is very relevant to Universal for a number of reasons:
1) Bedford is the poor relation in this. The chain of cities/towns goes Oxford - Milton Keynes - Bedford - Cambridge with Bedford the most underdeveloped (MK is full of tech and formula 1).

2) Various useful infrastructure projects will be accelerated for reasons other than Universal if OxCam becomes a big government drive - East West Rail, road improvements.

3) There's a target for 15k houses per year to be built if this is to be supported.

So, buying land will be increasingly competitive since sellers will have options. From a political perspective, people have been talking about OxCam for years and there is a degree of cynicism as to whether it actually gets meaningful central support. Universal kind of solves some problems there - demonstrable investment in the least developed part of the Arc with infrastructure improvements that also benefit the OxCam idea and will bring lots of ancillary businesses into the area.

It’ll get central support but data centres and the like won’t be built here whilst we have some of the most expensive energy prices in the world. So unless Ed moves out the way and Labour change course temporarily it won’t ever reach its full potential and well once again squander a huge opportunity.

But on the whole it’s a huge thing for the area, seems the world revolves around Bedford atm.

 

[bedfordmassive]

"But on the whole it’s a huge thing for the area, seems the world revolves around Bedford atm."

Harks back to the Bedford Mayor's foreshadowing of Universal when announcing road improvemetns in December 2023 "It puts Bedford in the centre of the universe"

A428 upgrade makes Bedford 'centre of universe' says mayor

Work starts on a £950m upgrade of the A428, providing faster journeys between Bedford and Cambridge.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[rob@rar]

I also think the land could be put to better use than housing even if Universal don’t want/need it. The land should arguably be a leisure/entertainment hub and there could potentially be further leisure developments from other companies further down the line, these would be more suited to this area imo.

I’d probably agree with you, but I don’t think that’s how Bedford sees it. Part of the land acquired by Universal had previously been identified by Bedford Council as a location for a new residential settlement. Since Universal’s purchase of that land, the Council has been in discussion with them to determine the extent to which residential development on the site might contribute to Bedford’s housing targets. It might be that the contribution is zero homes, there doesn’t seem to be any information which has leaked out on that. But we do know the discussion has been taking place.

 

[Chessy]

I don’t think it’s a good idea personally have homes too close. Be better if the council found alternative sites, but as said we have no idea if they actually want to do that at all yet.

 

[JT01]

Yeah odd choice to build homes right next door to possibly one of europe's largest theme park resorts, Commercial use makes more sense.