Universal now in negotiations with government over plans for theme park and resort near Bedford

But so far there are “no red flags” to prevent Bedford Borough Council supporting the theme park, a meeting heard.

Sam Fox, priority projects consultant, told last night’s Environment and Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Thursday, September 26) that Universal and the government went into negotiations “a couple of weeks ago”.

“We’ve now entered a period of quiet from Universal in the public domain, so we’re not expecting them to be saying anything,” he said. “We’re not expecting the government to be saying anything publicly.

“We simply await the outcome of the government and universal negotiations on that financial package.

“There was talk because there’s an international investment summit taking place on October 14, I think people were putting two and two together and making a number.

“There was hope that the investment decision would be announced at that conference.

“My gut feeling is that it’s very, very, early days in their negotiations and there’s no real likelihood of that taking place on October14.

“So if you had heard that, don’t be disappointed if nothing is announced at that summit,” he said.

The Committee heard that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is the project sponsor, overseeing Universal as a “government project”.

The planning application (if submitted) will be dealt with by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

Mr Fox said: “That planning application will be in the form of what’s known as an SDO, a special development order.

“When the planning response unit in MHCLG have dealt with the application, they will write up a report that will go to secretary of state in MHCLG.

“And the secretary of state will sign off that planning decision before it’s laid in Parliament as a statutory instrument.

“We have a two stage approach to the scheme, the first is the investment decision.

“For instance, who pays for infrastructure like road improvements, rail improvements, that needs to be agreed between HM government.

“The second stage is once that negotiation has taken place around the investment decision and they’ve reached an agreement in principle the planning decision will be taken forward.

“We at the council will be a statutory consultee, and we’ve now confirmed that our formal response to the [30 day] consultation will be signed off by the executive.

“It won’t actually come to the Planning Committee, but it’ll be an executive decision,” he said.

“I’m pleased to say there’s no major red flags for us that we’ve seen from a technical point of view that would make us think, actually the council can’t support this, or we don’t recommend that the council supports this,” he said.

Plans for the theme park and resort were first revealed in December last year.