Universal theme park in Bedford to get its own sewage works

The UK’s new Universal Studios theme park will have an onsite sewage treatment plant to process the waste of the millions of people expected to visit each year.

Anglian Water confirmed that the 192-hectare site in Kempston Hardwick in Bedfordshire would have a wastewater system separate from the firm's domestic supplies to ensure it did not disrupt services to surrounding residents.

Planning permission was granted for the theme park in December last year, with ongoing talks centred around water accessibility. The park is expected to attract around 8.5m people annually when it opens in 2031.

Universal Studios said it planned to separate a water processing and collection plant, where rainwater will be collected in drainage ponds and used for watering the park grounds and topping up water features.

Anglian Water operates extensively across the East of England and Hartlepool, with water sources extracted from around 400 ground water sources, eight reservoirs and 13 rivers in the region.

The firm collects and treats approximately 1.7bn L/d of wastewater, and supplies 1.2bn L/d of clean drinking water.

Water accessibility has become a growing topic of discussion for the Bedfordshire region, with a proposed 140,000 sq m data centre expected to sit next to the Universal park.

Data centres rely heavily on clean water sources for cooling. In the UK, they consume around 1.8bn L/y of potable water, which accounts for 0.2% of the UK’s non-household water demand. The centre is expected to operate at up to 720 MW, with developers saying it could meet a third of the UK’s data centre demand.