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A theme park, in Bedford? Not just any theme park, but the biggest of its kind in Europe, with the brand that is known around the world above the door. “This will change our county forever,” was one of my first thoughts, shortly followed by how exciting and transformative this opportunity will be, not just for Bedfordshire, but for us a fire service.
Bedfordshire is a landlocked, significantly rural county with a population of about 700,000 people. In the centre of the ‘Oxford-Cambridge Arc’ and touted by the government as the heart of the future ‘silicon valley’ of the UK, we are one of the fastest growing counties in the country with development taking place everywhere; a proposed new town of Tempsford the size of Oxford and Cambridge combined, the build of East West Rail right through the middle, and the expansion of London Luton Airport, and now, the announcement of a Universal Studios Resort right in the middle on a disused brickworks site in a place called Stewartby and a target date for opening in early 2031.
This is a really exciting prospect for Bedfordshire, but the hard work has already begun. What does Universal’s coming to Bedford mean to Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service (BFRS), and what will the impact be?
Although classed (and funded) as a significantly rural county, our community risk analysis paints a different picture. For example, Luton is the most densely populated local authority outside London, and one of the most diverse, and we are the 12th busiest FRS in England in terms of incidents per head of population.
With our rapidly evolving risk profile changing faster than ever, it has catapulted us into an accelerated community risk analysis project, which will see us develop a dynamic and live risk analysis tool to support our planning not just for Universal, but to ensure we are fit for the future as we embark on the transformational changes needed to keep ahead of our growing county.
Without the full plans and timelines for Universal specifically, it is hard to be certain, so the service established a small team to examine the potential impacts on all areas of service delivery.
This broke the project down into four key areas:
- The planning phase
- The construction phase
- The build, up to the gates opening
- Business as usual
Each phase brings different changes and challenges, and hits differently across the fire service.
The planning phase will impact our Protection Team as it gets to grip with hotel, restaurant and ride plans. This is not just within the Universal resort park, but a whole infrastructure that will develop around it. Other hotel owners will want to take advantage of the new park with sites nearby. Universal already set out plans for supporting industries like caterers and laundries off-site, for every role created on the park, they expect two more off-site. This means huge changes and building work in and around Bedford.
Planning also reaches into our strategic team. What must we plan for, how will it impact our services, and how will we secure the upfront investment needed? Significant road alterations will occur on one of our major trunk roads through the county – the A421 – and more specifically, junction 13 of the M1. How will these impact our attendance times and our ability to meet our response standards? Our in-house Business Intelligence Team have modelled a series of scenarios for response times across the construction phase and into business as usual post 2031.
The risk profile of Bedford has been relatively static for a number of years, but the announcement of Universal is a pivot point for BFRS. We are asking ourselves the questions; What will it do to businesses and communities near the park? Are there those who will move away from a busy theme park? Are there businesses who will move in? Does this attract a different demographic to the current communities, and what does that do to risk? How will that impact our prevention activities in the future? All of this is being modelled and being built into our community risk analysis work.
Another factor we are also considering is what that potential change in the community means for our ability to recruit and retain firefighters in the nearby areas. There could be greater opportunity – or this change could have even more of a detrimental effect on our already stretched and challenged efforts in the on-call duty system.
As the construction of Universal also lands at the same time as other major projects in Bedfordshire. The construction of a second passenger terminal at London Luton Airport (LLA), the construction of a major new railway line from Oxford to Cambridge running through Bedford (East-West Rail) and the proposed new town of Tempsford with up to 50,000 new houses. What is the sum of all these parts combined? Do we have enough protection staff? Are our fire stations in the right places to respond to new risks and communities in the next five years and into 2050?
We are also looking at what the impact of Universal will be on risks like flooding and wildfire. We must ensure this is factored into our risk management plans and the appropriate mitigations are included. The initial designs do not include multi-storey car parking, but the plan is to include it as the park evolves. Our experience in October 2023 of the car park fire at London Luton Airport means we will be lobbying to ensure sprinklers are included in any multi-storey car parks.
The construction phase brings a new set of challenges. How does construction traffic impact the roads and our ability to respond quickly? What will the planned 5,000-bed temporary construction village look like, and how do we manage the fire risks in that accommodation? What is the impact of emerging technologies introduced as a result of the changing site-specific risks and the evolving demographic? Does this encourage more buildings to be converted into HMOs in Bedford and the surrounding areas to accommodate the workforce? If so, what does that do to the workload of our protection teams? How do we manage that risk? And what about once construction is complete? What backfills that void in the HMO market when the construction workers are gone?
Managing the risks of a large construction project is business as usual for all UK fire and rescue services. The key will be working with the site safety teams to understand the phases, access arrangements and risks in each construction phase. As the phases ebb and flow, local crews must be kept abreast of progress and risks.
As the park nears completion, there will be a period of testing to prepare for the first paying guests. The service, which chairs and hosts the Local Resilience Forum, will be intrinsically linked with all partners to ensure a seamless emergency response is planned, prepared, tested and exercised for all foreseeable eventualities.
Under the Civil Contingencies Act, Category 1 and 2 responders will all need to prepare for foreseeable eventualities. How do we evacuate the park safely? How do we operate safely around rides and machinery? Are our current terrorist response arrangements sufficient, given that the risks they were designed around did not include a major international tourist attraction?
Multi-agency plans must be developed, tested and exercised with the park to ensure their effectiveness under real-world conditions. Local crews will also need to familiarise themselves with the park’s layout and gather risk intelligence on hazards present within the park, behind the scenes, and in the supporting industries that spring up to support the park.
That leads us into 2031 and the arrival of the first paying guests to Universal. What will the impacts be upon BFRS and the delivery of our services to the people of Bedfordshire? What will the traffic flows look like? How is our ability to respond up and down major infrastructure routes of the A6 and A421 impacted during the busy period, such as the school holidays? Does a reduction in traffic speeds result in fewer road traffic collisions or does it push local traffic onto more minor, more winding, local roads where the rate increases? All this is being factored into our community risk analysis to make sure we have the right resources in the right place at the right times.
The park’s opening will inevitably involve response work, such as attending to automatic fire alarms in new hotels. Understanding what new response looks like will be key to managing risk and demand across BFRS resources. Does the park regularly pull wholetime resources away from Bedford and how does that impact our currently good response times in Bedford Borough?
Regular testing and exercising with the park’s response teams must be embedded as business as usual for local crews and specialist assets, such as our rope rescue team. The park’s development will continue beyond the opening of the gates, with new rides, attractions, and accommodations planned for future phases. This will all draw upon resources to support delivery and keep our response plans current.
And what about the local communities? Will some move away from a busy theme park? Does it all become AirBnB type of accommodation around the park? What communities move into the area to be close to the park for employment? What happens to property prices, and how does that impact our ability to deliver our on-call stations in the local areas?
We will need to answer many questions over the next few years to ensure we maintain consistently high levels of service for Bedfordshire’s communities and work together to continue make Bedfordshire safer. We look forward to working with Universal, partner agencies, and the myriad other stakeholders involved to deliver this exciting new opportunity for Bedfordshire.
We do not underestimate the scale of the task involved and as one of the UK’s smaller fire and rescue services, we were already stretched delivering the agenda for change in a post-Grenfell world. There will be many challenges to overcome and we must seize the opportunities that lie ahead and doing so will require us to be forward leaning, agile and responsive as we navigate the complexities of the next five years, particularly given the limited resources we have today. But it is a challenge we are up for as we work together with our partners to ensure we keep our communities, and our visitors, safe.
We look forward to seeing you all at Universal Resort Bedford in 2031!
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