EastEnders

This story is a bit smoke and mirrors.

The problems are front-loaded - the original management of the E20 project did very little for three years which is why the budget shot up. The project also suffered from a lack of funding during the Thompson era of cuts.

The new set in the car park (front lot) is on target - the rebuilt in the back lot is in trouble.

The other red herring is that the whole project budget included reroofing of the studios and relocation or update of dressing rooms and other facilities housed in portable buildings.

Is the new lot where the diggers are currently, right next to the Clarendon Way entrance to BBC Elstree?

Yes. One of my colleagues lives on a road that backs onto the current Eastenders lot and when I went to visit her I could see all the works starting, looking at the planning app it looks like the new lot is smaller...

Wide shot of BBC Elstree Centre - Holby City Hospital Top Centre & both Albert Squares bottom. I think this shows how much work has been done to the studio buildings so far - The long building at the bottom of the picture is where the inside sets are located. Also just how vulnerable the old back lot is for use as development land

I think EE has a lot of studio space now, I think they've converted even more over the past few years.

I'm surprised Holby City's never moved to Cardiff. Surely would be a strong argument for production savings by combining facilities with Casualty?

Holby's got a pretty big and distinctive outdoor set. You'd need a really big explosion to cover up that move, and those only ever seem to happen at the A&E department for some reason.

It would be nice if they both looked like they were vaguely in the same postcode, at least, which they really don't at the moment.

So that new set area looks significantly smaller. Can anyone confirm that the construction photos are of a temp set whilst the main set is severely upgraded, or is this the actual new permanent set? I've lost track of this a bit.

Is the new set area possibly just the square, and the rest of Walford's being built elsewhere?

Scratch that - I was looking at it the wrong way. Does look like it fits... just about. Maybe George Street being the only casualty?

I think it was in the plans that the new square is not "connected" as the current one each, not that it will matter much on screen.
The set being built is the new permanent set - the previous plan to build a temporary set was scrapped.

On the Drama repeats you can see a fair bit of the big grey wall of BBC Elstree over the back of the playground, as the extension to the set that now obscures it hasn't been built yet. It's quite interesting seeing it slowly grow in 1986 at the moment - don't think we've seen the 4th side of Albert Square yet but the extension to the tube bridge that eventually houses The Arches is now there, and the Assembly Hall (that is eventually replaced by the much more modern Community Centre) is there too.

I imagine they'll want the new set to look as similar on screen as the old one, a lot like when Corrie moved.