The BBC's war on the Universal theme park

A theme park is being built in Bedfordshire with widespread public support, but the BBC are having none of it.

The Universal theme park is like nothing in Britain today. When it opens in 2031 it may be the biggest tourist attraction in the country, dwarfing national institutions like Alton Towers. It will generate tens of thousands of jobs and utterly transform the economy of Bedfordshire, Britain’s most important county¹. It will make Luton Airport a destination and a not an escape plan. It will be built on perhaps the most perfect construction site in south east England - a derelict former brickworks next to an underused mainline railway station and the M1 motorway. Every council and MP in the area is behind it, as are local residents and businesses.

It is hard to think of a mega-project this century that is so obviously, objectively a Very Good Thing and that enjoys such, well, universal support. Even the arch-NIMBYs at the Campaign to Protect Rural England have made positive noises about it, citing “the rare opportunities to deliver environmental as well as economic benefits.”

Which makes it baffling that the BBC is waging a relentless campaign of negative coverage against it.

“Traffic fears over Universal theme park plan” declares one recent headline from the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporting Service, a network of 165 reporters funded by the Beeb to support regional news organisations. It leads with: “Concerns have been raised that plans for Universal Studios' first theme park in the UK have not accounted for the potential impact on the roads.”

Except… ‘concerns’ plural is misleading. The story features one concern raised by one local councillor, who worries the (extensive) traffic plans ‘don’t add up’ despite the major improvements that will made to roads and railways. She supports the theme park in any case, but it’s unclear why the Beeb feels the need to act as a stenographer for the opinions of one council member, or why they chose to lead with her transport ‘fears’ and not her view that the park is an “extraordinary investment in our area.”

The BBC’s coverage is riddled with this language of ‘concerns’. Another headline from the Local Democracy Reporting Service reads: “Council to back Universal plans despite concerns.” From the headline you might imagine a close-run debate with passionate arguments as the members of Bedford Borough Council grappled with complex issues and struggled to reach an agreement. In reality the decision was a no-brainer: the council members thought it would be a massive economic boost, create tens of thousands of jobs and provide a fantastic opportunity to regenerate the town centre; but quite sensibly they felt they should ask the government for some more transport cash to build up infrastructure. It’s hard to imagine a more enthusiastic response from a council to a local development, which makes the tone of the headline utterly bizarre.

The theme park is a great opportunity for local councils to grab some cash, and the nearby town of Ampthill is no exception. Sure enough, they were able to secure their own spot on the BBC website: “Town near Universal site worried about impact.” That impact includes ‘residents making a fast buck on AirBnB’, and the prospect of noise and light pollution from firework displays at the park, which is six miles away and on the other side of a ridge of hills. The town council insists that these problems can be overlooked, however, for a price… they want Universal to provide every household in Ampthill with a free annual family ticket to the theme park.

This is basically a kind of shakedown. Britain’s hostile planning system looms over developers like an ugly Mafia henchman, scaring them into throwing millions at local authorities to get their projects over the line with minimal fuss. Councillors can exploit this with the BBC acting as facilitators to the grift, laundering their ‘concerns’ - and crucially their demands - through its local reporting. It’s not even subtle at this point: Ampthill Town Council literally ask for a ‘discretionary fund’ to spend on the town. “Nice theme park you’ve got there. Shame if someone started a planning dispute.”

It’s not just councils who are granted access to Auntie’s megaphone. BBC reporters act as stenographers for essentially any group with a grudge or concern about the park. “Universal theme park sparks fear of ‘losing homes’” shouts one headline, based on quotes from the campaign group Generation Rent. The argument is that because the theme park will generate lots of new jobs, people might move to the area, creating demand for more homes and causing rents to go up.

The problem here of course isn’t the theme park, or the wider economic growth that’s seen rents rise sharply in Bedford in recent years; it’s lack of housing, which is a weird thing to pin on a new park. Universal were contacted for comment but did not respond, presumably because it’s a batshit crazy thing to be asked to respond to: what exactly are they supposed to say, ‘sorry for creating jobs?’ It’s not that concerns about rents are invalid, but that it’s tortuously weird to frame an article around the idea that new jobs are a bad thing.

Not every headline is negative, but even the neutral stories often have a bizarre slant to them. “Area with four drive-throughs could see more added” is an absolute head-scratcher: the words aren’t negative but the vibes are all off. Four? it seems to imply, And they want more? The area in question is a retail park opposite the Universal site that currently hosts a KFC, Costa, Burger King and McDonalds. Clearly to add a Starbucks would be utter madness.

Then there are the maddening inaccuracies. In an otherwise fairly positive article the BBC’s intrepid reporter takes to the streets of Bedford to ask residents what they make of the new theme park. The reaction is overwhelmingly positive: all of them are enthusiastic about the park and the mayor describes it as the ‘best news in a very long time’. Unbelievably, their views are summed up as: “Bedford residents had mixed thoughts on the plans.”

Stare as these articles long enough and a pattern emerges: national coverage can be quite positive at times, but any local reporting seems almost comically negative, like reporters have to almost manufacture the idea that there’s local opposition in order to make a story out of it.  Tom Phillips made an interesting related observation on BlueSky recently:

“A thing I've long suspected but never got round to rigorously checking is that the Local Democracy Reporting Service is, effectively, structurally nimby - because a disproportionate amount of the available material if you're covering "local democracy" is planning objections”

That certainly seems to be the case with the Universal theme park. It feels like the BBC have accidentally created a service where basically any councillor with a grudge or any minor protest has a direct channel to becoming news, because that’s much easier to cover than doing detailed, positive reporting on, say, the businesses and residents who can’t wait to see spades in the ground.

It speaks to a profound failure of imagination, and it raises the question: what is the point of the BBC’s investment in local reporting if it’s unable to reflect the views of people in the regions, or talk seriously about their real concerns; if it becomes simply another instrument in the hands of NIMBY blockers.

Thank you for reading - James and I talk more about this story in this week’s episode of The Abundance Agenda, along with new plans for Eurostar and the inside story of HS2.

1. Because I live in it.