Film studios given permission for major expansion

A historic film production facility has been given the green light to expand.

On Thursday, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead gave Amazon, the owner of Bray Studios, a unanimous permission to build six more sound stages at the premises in Windsor.

The tech giant took over the studios in 2024, after the previous owner had got planning permission to expand them in 2022.

Kiera Head-Lewis from the Berkshire Film Office in Slough, which helps facilitate filming across the county, said the development also supported local businesses, crew and talent to find jobs in the industry.

The studios was previously used by the Hammer Films company.

The British Film Commission (BFC) previously said it "recognises that the studio benefits from Amazon MGM's commitment" and welcomed its "ambition to support employment opportunities for both the local community and more widely across the UK sector".

Head-Lewis said they "get a whole load of different requests with the close links to London, just being off of the M4".

"It's become a great place to film in Berkshire because we have such a wide variety of filming locations - we have the urban but then we also have the countryside which is something that London can't necessarily compete with."

She said some of the productions they had facilitated include crime drama Mobland, which filmed in Reading, and the new Marvel series VisionQuest.

"That was a very big production, we worked with them over around five to six months and they filmed in Slough," Head-Lewis said.

She said they were always in touch with "a whole range of companies", which created links to help them "get the foot in the door".

"With local career and talent - we're always receiving job opportunities that we share with our with our networks to get them into the industry," she added.