Theme park promises magic the moment planning permission arrives, which analysts price somewhere around never
A Theme Park Built Entirely On Anticipation
There are few things the British economy enjoys more than a large, exciting project that may never actually happen, and Disneyland London is shaping up to be the finest example since the garden bridge. As I report from the business desk this week, the venture has already achieved the remarkable status of being Britain’s most expensive queue, and not one ride has been built.
The full saga of the kingdom that exists chiefly in artists’ impressions is told in this account of Britain’s most ambitious planning application, and as a Londoner who has watched the city promise things for two decades, I read it with the calm of someone who has been here before.
The Planning Permission Industrial Complex
Every great London project begins with a vision and ends with a consultation. The vision is the easy part. The consultation involves residents, councillors, the Planning Inspectorate, an owl that may or may not be protected, and a man called Trevor who objects to everything on principle and has, over forty years, become a load-bearing part of the democratic process.
Disneyland London has reportedly budgeted for delight, wonder and a small fortune in legal fees, the last of which is the only line item anyone seriously believes will be spent. The economics of theme parks are genuinely fascinating and handled responsibly by trade bodies like the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, who I suspect have never encountered a British green belt.
The Queue As An Asset Class
Here is the bit that earns my paycheck. Investors have been told that the queue itself is monetisable. People will pay to wait for something that does not exist, on the theory that the waiting is part of the experience and the experience is part of the brand. This is either the most cynical thing I have ever heard or the most British, and I genuinely cannot tell the difference any more.
The numbers, when I pressed for them, dissolved into the usual mist of projected footfall and anticipated ancillary spend, phrases that mean nothing until the gates open and everything once the accountants arrive. The ICAEW would have notes.
What London Always Does
London does not build things. London announces things, renders things, and then spends a glorious decade arguing about things while the cost rises and the enthusiasm curdles into a sort of fond resignation. Disneyland London is following the script perfectly. By the time it either opens or quietly dies, we will have forgotten what it was supposed to be and remembered only the queue.
If it does open, I shall be first in line, notebook in hand, ready to report that the magic was worth every minute of the eleven-year wait and every pound of the fee for waiting. If it does not, I shall write the same column I have written about the bridge, the bid and the bypass, and we shall all nod and order another nine-pound coffee.
Magic of a smaller scale is available right now at NewsBiscuit.
One Last Note From The Desk
I shall file this story in the same drawer as every other magnificent London project that may or may not happen, and I shall check back in a decade to see whether the drawer needs a bigger filing cabinet or a smaller one. My money, professionally and personally, is on the field. But London has surprised me before, usually by being even more expensive than I forecast, and I would not bet my mortgage against a castle eventually rising from the consultation. I cannot afford to bet my mortgage on anything, which is rather the theme of my career.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/disneyland-london/
The Long British Tradition Of The Project That Wasn’t
I have covered enough of these to recognise the genre. Britain does not lack ambition; it lacks follow-through, and somewhere in the space between the two we have built an entire economy of anticipation. The garden bridge, the various airport expansions, the northern rail lines that exist chiefly as press releases: each began as a vision and matured into a cautionary tale, employing armies of consultants the whole way down.
Disneyland London fits the pattern so neatly it could be used to teach it. There will be renders. There will be a community engagement phase. There will be a heroic local objector. There will be, above all, a decade of cost, the kind catalogued with grim affection in the running record of London’s grandest unbuilt dreams. And at the end, either a theme park or a field, and we will all pretend we knew which it would be.
The genuine economics of large infrastructure, including why so many projects balloon in cost, are studied seriously by institutions like the National Audit Office, whose reports on major project overruns read like thrillers for people who enjoy being upset about spreadsheets.
Why I Keep Reporting On Castles In The Air
Because the anticipation is itself an economic force, and a real one. Money moves. Land is bought. Hopes are raised and dashed and raised again. The queue, absurd as it sounds, is a genuine market in optimism, and London has always been the world capital of charging people for hope. Whether the rides ever turn, the economy of the waiting has already turned a profit for someone. My job is to find out who, and to remember, as ever, that in this city the waiting is frequently the whole show.