A new film and television studio could be created at Liverpool’s iconic Littlewoods Building, as plans are considered this month.

The city has already proven to be a hotspot for feature film locations and flagship TV dramas, with filming up by 20% in 2015 compared to last year, and a proposed new £25 million facility would help the area meet further demand.

A report will go to Liverpool City Council’s cabinet on 18 September, outlining a 4.5-hectare hub of studios, a new home for the currently Aigburth-based Liverpool Theatre School, and also further space for the city’s booming creative sector. Opportunities for an on-site educational offer at the Edge Lane facility, which will also be located on the neighbouring Liverpool Innovation Park, will also be explored.

It is hoped the complex, which would bring an estimated 900 full-time jobs when at capacity, would prevent the city from missing out on millions of pounds of filming revenue as the British film industry takes advantage of recently announced tax breaks. A Film Office report previously revealed that in 2014-15 capacity issues saw Liverpool miss out on a potential £20m.

If approved, work on the project would get underway immediately with major onsite works starting as soon as January 2016.

The Littlewoods Building and adjacent land is currently owned by the Homes and Communities Agency, which will be disposing of its interest to the city council.  All parties have been working together to facilitate this delivery and an agreement is in place to transfer the land and property interests to the preferred scheme developer Capital and Centric Ltd at no cost to the city council.

Capital and Centric has already recently completed a £4m conversion of the former Littlewoods Building’s Bunker Building into speculative office space and, under new plans, would take direct ownership of the site with a 250-year lease delivering the first two of three phases of the scheme.

Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, says: “This project has been a long time in the planning. Various sites were reviewed, but the recognisable Littlewoods building offers the scale required and is in a great location to attract productions to the city.”

Claire Poyser, joint managing director of Lime Pictures, welcomes the potential boost to the city’s media industry adding: “I am delighted and excited that Liverpool will have its own production facility. It will not only provide the impetus for growth for established production companies operating within the region but attract new business to a city that offers a greater range of backdrops than anywhere else in the UK.” 

Recent filming projects in Liverpool have included feature film Florence Foster Jenkins starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant; Stephen Poliakoff drama Close to the Enemy; ITV supernatural crime drama Houdini and Doyle and Sky’s flagship 2016 drama The Five.

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