Universal’s UK theme park is a win for the government – but one rollercoaster of a challenge

Universal’s announcement of a huge new theme park in Bedfordshire counts as a much-needed win for the UK and its beleaguered government as the latter attempts to revive a torpid economy while grappling with Trump’s tariffs, a global market meltdown and its own dismal poll ratings.

The announcement of the deal talked breathlessly of a “£50bn boost to the economy” along with the creation of 28,000 jobs “across creative, hospitality and construction industries”.

While I’m always sceptical when numbers like that get thrown around (and it often feels like they are plucked out of the air), this is still a bona fide big deal.

The UK lost out to France when Disney was looking for a venue for its first European theme park: partly because of the latter’s ability to easily draw in visitors from across Europe, partly because of climate (although the annual rainfall in Bedford is actually a tad less than Paris experiences while hotter summers are getting increasingly common here thanks to global heating).

While the number of visitors to Disneyland Paris fell in 2023, it remains the only European destination in the worldwide top 10 in the Themed Entertainment Association’s Global Attractions Attendance Report.

The best attended UK park was Legoland Windsor, good for number 10 in the Europe, the Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region, with 2.4 million visitors. The Warner Bros Studio Tour London, which focuses on Harry Potter, isn’t on that list, although it also tops 2 million visitors annually. Universal’s park will eclipse those two, and just about anything else, if it achieves the expected 8.5 million visitors in its first year.

Its site on the former Kempston Hardwick brickworks site just south of the town of Bedford is within spitting distance of Luton airport, the expansion of which has been approved by the government. One would hope some thought has been given to other transport links. It would not look good for there to be a repeat of the queues of vehicles that embarrassed the French when Disneyland Paris opened.

This may also put the government’s enthusiasm for planning reform to the test. But I wouldn’t foresee the latter as the biggest issue to be overcome if this is to live up to the hype Keir Starmer has been giving it.

Here are a few things the PM might care to think about because the announcement is just the start of the process.

Let’s start with the fact that the hospitality sector says it has 132,000 vacancies to fill, something UK Hospitality lists as a “core priority”. The trade body says it raises this with the government “at every opportunity”. The sense of frustration at the tin ear it receives is palpable when I talk to industry leaders.

There is time to address that. A more immediate labour problem comes in the form of the construction workers that Universal’s contractors will need to find. Labour keeps telling us it wants to build 1.5 million new homes, which is also putting pressure on a sector the government admits faces a “dire shortage” of workers. It’s not as if they can be easily imported, like in the rest of Europe. Thanks Brexit! We are told this is being addressed, but the proof of the pudding and all that…

Moving swiftly on, should we look at the decision to slash VisitBritain’s promotional budget with just 24 hours’ notice? When its CEO Nick de Bois spoke to my colleague Simon Calder, he said ministers “don’t get tourism” – with some justification. This month, the requirement for the £10 Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) was also imposed on all European visitors apart from the Irish, with the cost set to increase to £16 in short order.

After Brexit – yes, we’re still on the impact of Brexit – Britain also insisted EU visitors carry a full passport. Around 300 million EU citizens have only ID cards and therefore cannot travel to the UK. The decision was described by Bernard Donoghue, director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, as “a disastrous act of economic self-harm”. I might venture to add that it was a supreme act of stupidity on the part of the previous British government.

There would doubtless be some who would argue that all this is nitpicking on my part. After all, the deal has been signed – huzzah! Universal, whose parent company Comcast has a big presence here through its ownership of Sky, knows the scene and the score and has nonetheless committed billions of pounds in capital expenditure. It must be comfortable that these problems can be overcome.

But the success or failure of this project will have ramifications beyond theme parks. It will be carefully scrutinised by anyone considering investing in the UK.

The government has to prove it can pull this off without Comcast’s money getting poured down the drain through cock-ups and systemic failure. Delays, queues like those that initially blighted Disneyland Paris, not to mention the latter’s financial difficulties in the 2010s, could all rapidly apply a thick coat of tarnish.

It’s not just Keir Starmer’s kids – and the PM said they were unusually interested in this particular government announcement – who will be watching closely.