Last week Sunderland City Council approved Studio One at Crown Works Studios. It is the first phase of a major film and high-end TV studio on the banks of the River Wear, and it is the most significant piece of screen infrastructure the North of England has seen in years. From where we sit in Thursby, it is about an hour and a half away across the A69.
Some people in Cumbria might read that and think the North East has just won something we have not. We see it differently. This is good news for Cumbria, and it is an opportunity we should be ready to grab as a region.
What has been approved
- 125,000 sq ft of film and TV production space in phase one
- Three sound stages, a backlot, production accommodation and parking
- Refurbishment of the historic WH Foster Printworks building
- Backed by more than £38m from the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority, with total public investment in the site and Studio One set to reach just over £60m
- Site remediation is complete and further enabling works continue this autumn
North East Mayor Kim McGuinness called it the region’s first film and TV studios, and Sunderland City Council leader Cllr Chris Eynon described it as paving the way for the North East to become “a major destination for film and high-end TV production.”
Why this is good news for Cumbria
A studio of this scale changes where productions decide to base themselves. Big-budget drama that would once have defaulted to London, Manchester or Glasgow now has a reason to set up in the North of England for months at a time. And productions that base themselves in the North go looking for northern locations.
The most dramatic landscape within easy reach of Sunderland is ours. Lakes, fells, coastline, Hadrian’s Wall, market towns and country estates, all within a couple of hours of a sound stage. Stage work happens on the Wear; location work happens in places like Cumbria. Every production that comes to Crown Works is a production that could spend days or weeks shooting here.
It also grows the pool of people who do this for a living. Crown Works is putting real weight behind skills and training, which means more trained crew across the North. Some of them will live in Cumbria, or would like to, and a busier northern industry gives them more reason to stay.
We are not competing with Crown Works
Let’s be clear about scale. Crown Works is 125,000 sq ft of sound stage. Lake District Film Studios is two studios on the Crofton Hall estate. We are not Pinewood, we are not Crown Works, and we are not trying to be.
That is exactly the point. A large stage complex serves productions while they are on its stages. It does not serve them when a second unit is three days into a shoot on Ullswater, or when a production needs local crew who know the roads, the weather and the landowners. That is the layer we exist to provide:
- A base for location work. Productions that stage in the North East but shoot Lake District locations need somewhere nearby to work from: a production office, a green room, kit and space for pick-ups, inserts and reshoots without a three-hour round trip.
- Regional crew sourcing. Our crewing service connects productions with people already living and working in Cumbria, so more of the budget stays in the county.
- Green screen and infinity cove work. Studio One’s infinity cove handles VFX plates, interviews, promos and commercials that do not need a full sound stage.
- Podcast and content production. Studio Two runs a three-camera podcast rig with live streaming, for the EPK, behind-the-scenes and promotional content every modern production needs.
Big studios and smaller regional facilities are not rivals. They are parts of the same ecosystem, and the regions that do best are the ones where both exist.
Why Cumbria needs to act now
There is a version of the next five years where productions base themselves in Sunderland, drive over to film the Lake District, and take everything home with them at night: crew, catering, kit hire, accommodation and spend. Cumbria provides the scenery and the North East keeps the industry.
We would much rather see the other version, where Cumbria is ready when those productions come looking. That means:
- Somewhere to base a production. That now exists, fifteen minutes from Carlisle.
- A visible local crew base that productions can find and hire.
- Joined-up support from councils, the film office, landowners and businesses, so productions find it easy to say yes to Cumbria.
- Training and routes in for local people, so the jobs that follow these productions go to people who live here.
None of this needs Cumbria to build its own Crown Works. It needs the region to recognise that a major studio just over the Pennines is a pipeline of work heading towards us, and to be organised enough to catch it.
What we are doing
Lake District Film Studios is open and taking bookings now. Our mission is simple: to help create a film and TV industry in Cumbria and to provide training and employment for local people. Crown Works makes that mission more achievable, not less.
If you are a producer or location manager planning work in the North, talk to us early about a Cumbrian base. If you are crew living in the county, get in touch so we can put you in front of the productions that come through. And if you work anywhere in Cumbria’s creative sector, come and join the conversation at our next Creative Cumbria Meetup on Thursday 29 October.