The 2021 Census put Bedford Borough at 185,300 people, up 17.7 per cent on 2011, and the council’s own current figure is 196,398 on the ONS mid-2025 estimates published in July 2026. Fujifilm UK runs from Fujifilm House on Whitbread Way. It is worth being precise about geography here, though, because the thing everybody is talking about is not actually in the town.

That mix matters commercially, because of what is being built at Kempston Hardwick, on the site of the old brickworks south of Bedford. Universal United Kingdom Resort got its planning permission on 12 January 2026, and not from the council: it came by Special Development Order from the Secretary of State, which is why enforcement sits with the ministry rather than with Borough Hall. Enabling works were underway by June 2026 with construction to follow, and the stated plan is to open in 2031. The published projections are nearly 20,000 jobs during construction and a further 8,000 once it opens, with around 80 per cent of employees expected to come from Bedfordshire and the surrounding area. Those are the promoter’s and the government’s own forecasts rather than outcomes, but Universal has already logged over 33,000 expressions of employment interest.

The knock-on has already landed locally. Bedford Borough’s emerging Local Plan 2040 was withdrawn from examination on 8 October 2025, after government concerns about infrastructure funding and the impact of the resort, so the plan actually in force is still the Local Plan 2030 adopted in 2020. The town centre Business Improvement District also ended on 31 March 2025 when its renewal ballot failed on a turnout of just over 30 per cent. For a business here that has a practical consequence: a good deal of the usual local scaffolding is not in place at the moment, and the businesses that are already easy to find will pick up whatever arrives. We measure that in enquiries, not rankings screenshots.