Britain’s film industry received a major boost when the Government stepped into a green belt row between Pinewood Studios and local planners. After two rejections the world famous studios can now go ahead with a £200m expansion plan, codenamed “Project Pinewood”.
South Buckinghamshire Council has repeatedly thrown out plans for new sound stages and storage buildings which effectively would have doubled the size of the studio 20 miles west of London. In its original application Pinewood also wanted to build 1,000 homes on the 110-acre green belt expansion site, which lies between its current facilities and the M25.
That scheme was rejected by South Bucks District Council in October, 2009, following a prolonged campaign by local residents, who formed a “Stop Project Pinewood” group.
A revised scheme was also rejected in 2012 by both local planners and the Government as “inappropriate”, forcing the studio to yet again redraw its expansion on purely commercial lines. The latest application prompted even more hostility from local residents and was thrown out once again.
Appealing, Pinewood — famous for classics such as the James Bond films and the Carry On series — argued its expansion was essential because the studio’s current facilities were at capacity and the British film industry was at risk of losing big budget productions to overseas studios. It also claimed Oscar-winning director Ridley Scott and several “rival” Hollywood studios backed the project.
Allowing the appeal, the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles explained the UK’s film industry was enjoying unprecedented growth and deserved the Government’s support. His decision was immediately welcomed by Ivan Dunleavy, chief executive of Pinewood Shepperton, who said: “Project Pinewood builds on the success of the Government’s policy for the creative industries and addresses the shortage of stage space in the UK.
“As a result of the green light from the secretary of state, thousands of much needed new jobs will be created in this growing sector of the economy. We want to begin construction as soon as possible.”
Matthew Fell is the Confederation of British Industry’s director for competitive markets. “Britain’s creative industries are already world-beaters and make a huge contribution to our economy. We now need to build on this potential to help it achieve even greater global success,” he said.
First unveiled in 2007, the originally Project Pinewood had envisioned much of its residential phase being occupied by a “creative community” allied to the film sector. The studio element of the expansion, which will now go ahead, contained warehousing and vast reusable outdoor sets.
Among the street-scapes would be locations from the UK, Europe and the USA. Planned sets include a college campus, Amsterdam, modern European housing, Venice, Lake Como, Paris, an Amphitheatre, Prague, West coast American housing, downtown New York streets and shops, Chicago, Vienna, a castle, a canal, Chinatown and a London street market.
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