A project listing on a contractor’s website may be our first confirmation that The Wizarding World of Harry Potter will in fact be coming to Universal United Kingdom Resort, under construction now.

Despite early reports that the park would not contain a Harry Potter themed area, (and it being absent visually from the officially released concept art,) many have reported rumors that the boy wizard was eventually added into the plans for the new park, set to open in 2031.

First reported by The Sun exactly one year ago, many fans also started to report of hearing rumors for Harry Potter being locked into the new theme park’s opening plans.

Last week, fans found a list of PPE protections required for various projects from PCL, a construction company who works with Universal, which seemed to confirm the recent rumor rumblings.

The listing, seen above as it was originally posted on the public-facing project management site “HammerTech,” described the project as “Project 1307 UUKR WWoHP – Public Project Site.”

The project number, 1307, is likely PCL’s, as Universal’s are only 3-digits. UUKR could stand for Universal United Kingdom Resort. WWoHP usually stands for Wizarding World of Harry Potter in official documents.

PCL Construction has worked on all of the Harry Potter projects for the Orlando theme parks, from Hogsmeade at Islands of Adventure, to Ministry of Magic at Epic Universe.

Initial reports for the Universal UK project had Harry Potter left off, likely because the Warner Bros. Tour is located just 30 minutes from where the new theme park is being built, so the rights holders may not have wanted to have competition nearby.

The Sun’s initial reporting said that there was a lengthy rights battle before Universal was finally granted permission to include Harry Potter in their upcoming UK park.

As Universal prepared to build their new £5 billion park at a former brickworks near Bedford they sent out a survey to local residents. From the over six-thousand responses they received, Harry Potter was the number one request, by far. (Jurassic World/Park, JAWS, Back to the Future, Minions, and more rounded out some of the other popular responses.)

While there were early rumors of a possible Lord of the Rings land for the new park, by all accounts it sounds like any negotiations for rights for Universal to utilize the property may have fallen through, or perhaps Universal just decided to go in another (Potter-shaped) direction instead.

Regardless of initial rumors that the park would attempt to limit cloned attractions from Universal Orlando, it is now looking like it could contain Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, along with the Hogsmeade land, (in addition to a cloned Minion Mayhem ride, although likely in the larger Omnimax dome format used for Minions rides at Universal’s Asia parks).

Speculation is that part of the calculation may have been to save time on planning, as cloning Potter means they can start building this area sooner. A new Middle Earth themed land (or anything entirely new) may have taken extra time to design, and that’s time they no longer have as major construction is set to begin NOW.

Now, it is worth noting that in the time it has taken me to prepare this story, the original listing was stripped of any mention of the initials of the UK Resort and Harry Potter, seen above.

Then, a day later, the page was removed from public view entirely. This is likely because the page was drawing attention, being shared on social media and within fan site forums.

Many are taking the listing’s removal as admission that our reading of the listing is correct, and they’re attempting to hide the information, but it’s equally possible the listing was removed to prevent misinformation from spreading, so we cannot use this as 100% proof that Potter is a lock for the new park.

It is also worth noting that the updated official list of contractors working on the new theme park project was released just today. Notably, PCL Construction is absent from this list.

Since PCL Construction has worked on the Orlando Wizarding World projects it’s possible they would be on site for the UK project in an advisory position. The project is attempting to utilize as many local construction firms as possible, so it would make sense to have those with the local means do the actual work, even if PCL is there for managerial reasons.

Regardless of fan theories, we still may not have enough hard evidence to know for certain if Harry Potter is coming to Universal United Kingdom Resort.

Of course, if we see Hogwarts Castle start to rise up during construction, we’ll have our answer soon enough.

See our recent story for a full breakdown of the latest news and construction progress on the new UK theme park, including additional new ride rumors.

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Subscribe to the news feed or enter your email address below to never miss an update. Official Photos: Universal Destinations & Experiences | Graphics and Overlays: Alicia Stella | PCL Info: HammerTech | Other Images as Captioned

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