'Planning in place' to cope with Universal park

Bedfordshire's police and crime commissioner (PCC) said "planning is in place" to prepare the county for the arrival of the Universal Studios theme park.

The attraction is expected to draw 8.5 million visitors a year to the site, just outside Bedford, when it opens in 2031.

John Tizard, the county's Labour PCC, said the force was "working with Universal and Bedford Borough Council on plans for safety." He added that a request for additional funding to help them cope was being looked at "sympathetically" by the government.

Tizard, whose role will be scrapped in 2028, said there were concerns about security at the construction site and the threat of thefts of heavy machinery.

Tizard told BBC Three Counties Radio's Jonathan Vernon-Smith that Universal was "a good thing, the largest inward investment in infrastructure in the country and will bring many jobs and economic benefit to the county".

He said he was confident Bedfordshire Police would be ready for when the attraction opened at Kempston Hardwick, but voiced concerns about the construction period.

"We are going to have thousands of interim construction personnel in Bedfordshire on a regular basis and construction sites are very prone to people stealing equipment and machinery," he said.

Publicly elected police and crime commissioners were introduced by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2012.

Tizard was elected in May 2024, but the Labour government has said scrapping the role across the country would save £100m over this Parliament's term and allow for an extra £20m of investment in front-line policing every year.

The government has also announced proposals that could see the existing 43 police forces reduced to just 12 which could lead to Bedfordshire being merged with other forces in the east of England.

Tizard said: "I think there is an argument for greater collaboration, but not necessarily on the basis of a police force for the whole of the East as that would be too large and too remote.

"Bedfordshire spends approximately 25% of its budget collaboratively with Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire and we've got 12 years of a very effective collaboration on road traffic policing, major crime and armed policing, and there may be a case for doing much more of that."

One of those collaborations is the management of shotgun licences, but Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire were criticised earlier this year for "significant" backlogs in dealing with applications for those weapons.

The HM Inspectorate of Constabulary found more than 2,000 unanswered emails from applicants and issued an "accelerated cause of concern" saying the collaboration's management of licensing was not keeping the public safe.

Tizard said: "I think we all owe a big apology to those who hold guns legally for what has been a failure of service for the last two years.

"I'm pleased to say the backlog is falling, but needs to fall in a responsible way as we don't want to simply issue licences quickly if we're not making the right checks.

"We are putting AI technology in which will help speed up the process considerably and there's a new national firearms scheme being introduced by the government."

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