Seems to be a really pie in the sky scheme. I suggest there will be huge hurdles and the project will either be abandoned or shelved/delayed for years.
Plus the fact that the Midlands has not had any television production studios at all for well over a decade now means that crews with the skills set to work in them have retired or moved on. There are occasional plans to open production centres in the Midlands. They never seem to come to anything, and even if one did open, I’m not sure there’d be the demand, sadly.
Plus the fact that the Midlands has not had any television production studios at all for well over a decade now means that crews with the skills set to work in them have retired or moved on.
Except for Studios 7 and 11 at Lenton Lane, which were retained by Nottingham University:
Yes, but AFAIK they haven’t been used for anything much apart from students sitting exams. Unless anyone knows differently, I’m which case I’m happy to stand corrected.
Before WWII there were plans well underway to extend the Northern Line to Elstree (in fact I believe the lines are still half built underground) with the intention of serving new housing estates planned for the area. However building work stopped during the war and the Attlee government of 1945 introduced legislation which limited the expansion of urban areas into rural towns and so the station was scrapped.
Hi
Not sure if its possible from a technical point of view as I cannot remember if the line was already electrified, but if it is could some thing like the Tyne and Wear metro extension to Sunderland that runs the metro trains on the same lines as the main line trains (not at the same time of course) this would be a cheaper way to extend services on this line, and I would think there would be demand, not only for audience attendance to both the studios there but for general commuting to London.
.... the fact that the Midlands has not had any television production studios at all for well over a decade....... .
I'm sorry to take a quote out of context, but this is sad, so sad.
Birmingham has almost been forgotten about. All the money spent on HS2 will be justified to alleviate this, even if (as seems likely) it get cancelled beyond there.
:-(
A former member
Brum been out of action of nearly 30 years... Central already had plans to downsize brum in the early 90s going by all the research. In fact most stuff went to Lenton Lane during this period... Expect for CA and CITV. All the Spitting image, gameshows, drama etc were done in notts.
In fact what happened on the south bank sound familiar, Central brought Broad street place after renting it for years, moved everything out by 1990/91 of worth and then decided to move knock it down, I wonder how much ITV Carlton got for the land?
JM
JamesM0984
It is a crying shame that there is now a huge hole in the Midlands. But I think the plans to close Nottingham had been on the cards for a while - there's a theory that the controversial second, Yvon Grace-led reboot of Crossroads was done deliberately with the sole intention of killing off the show, and taking the whole of Lenton Lane with it. The first reboot was starting to show real promise and at that precise point it was pulled off-air, rested for 4 months, and then re-rebooted in the most ridiculous, garish way possible with the PR very deliberately engineered to alienate the existing audience. It was then very quickly junked by the network - after less than 2 months on-air I believe.
Crossroads took up a good two studios in the complex I believe, and had it been allowed to grow and develop could have kept a facility open in the Midlands. Indeed, who knows? Nottingham could have become a major "meedja" city instead of Salford.