Lights, Camera, Action! Film Studios Demand Creating Massive UK Opportunity – Owen Spencer writes for CoStar

Commercial Real Estate Senior Associate and member of our Film & TV Studios Group, Owen Spencer, has written for CoStar about how both the government and real estate industry should be alive to a major opportunity which could drive the ‘Levelling Up’ agenda.

With the film and television industry set to require an extra 6 million square feet of space by 2026, Spencer writes how the continued development of sites around London and the M25 may not be possible due to greenbelt protection. As such, the industry could be forced to look to new locations across the country.

What this growth industry also needs is additional crew – all trained and highly skilled. Currently, studio workers tend to live and work around the South East – where the largest studios are located.

The 2023 revaluation list for commercial buildings increased business rates for film studios. Spencer questions if this may also favour regional studios with a lower cost base.

Spencer suggests there is scope for the government to drive its much-publicised ‘Levelling Up’ agenda off the back of the industry’s dispersal across the country by facilitating the training of studio professionals outside of the South East.

He concludes by writing: “While there are many challenges, there is an opportunity for the government to place the UK’s expertise in the studio sector centre stage in its levelling up agenda and give the regions a starring role in this growth industry.”

This article was first published on 4 January 2023 by CoStar and can be read here in full (behind their paywall).