From the BBC:
Plans for the £200m expansion of Pinewood Studios have been turned down. The 15-year project would have seen the building of studios, stages and streetscapes at the site in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire.Yup. Can't have anyone doing things like putting up buildings where people work, can we?
Pinewood previously claimed if the plans were refused "significant harm" would be done to the UK economy. South Buckinghamshire Council rejected the plans as an "inappropriate" expansion into green belt land.
Councillor Bill Lidgate, whose ward includes Iver Heath, said he was "delighted" the plans were rejected.(puts on film production buff hat)
He said: "We're 87% green belt in South Bucks and those policies are jealously protected. The point people must understand is that Pinewood Studios do not make films, they rent out buildings."
Actually, they don't. Pinewood studios provide production facilities. You don't turn up and ask to rent the 007 stage and they just hand over the key. It's a managed service, like having a serviced office, only far more advanced. They've not only got the biggest stage in the world, but also things like an underwater filming tank, with all the specialists to run it. And it's set out as a centre, with makeup rooms, catering rooms and so forth. It's a value added service that provides a lot of highly skilled work to people.
When you watch a movie and see all the bad guys or bit players are Brits, you can almost guarantee it was shot in Britain. That's because you don't go flying bit players around the world - you use some British cast members. Count how many Britons have minor parts in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars. With the exception of Indy and Marion, the rest of the speaking parts are British. And same goes for crew and specialists. You don't go flying make up girls across the world. So, if you get productions here, you get all those jobs here. So while Pinewood don't make the movie, a lot of Britons do as a result.
And unlike the Homeys in South Bucks, desperate to keep their house prices high, Pinewood doesn't depend that heavily on location. They could decide that dealing with the sort of madness of British Homeys isn't worth it and start closing things down here and setting them up in Canada. You can shoot films almost anywhere.
6 comments:
The Homeys have shot themselves in the foot a bit here. By and large, having more jobs etc at Pinewood Studios means that local rents and house prices would go up.
And although the studio would use up a tiny extra part of the Hallowed Green Belt (or "swathes", to use their twisted language), it doesn't emit much noise or any pollution or smoke, so it's an ideal kind of neighbour.
Good you mentioned Canada. Movie production will also seek out the most beneficial tax-regime for films, and Canada virtually throws money at movie- and media production companies. I know someone in a computer-game company, and they have a whole department in Montreal to do most of the production, partly because of the tax-incentives, and because of the tax-incentives, all the relevant competence is there.
MW,
Yes. They're hardly a bad neighbour and people involved in movie production tend to be on a decent amount of money.
Kj,
It's the total cost, which includes the cost of staff, subsidies, taxes, and also skills have to be considered. Language is also an issue.
While Canada don't have LVT, they seem to understand the implications of "mobile" commerce. You can do movie production and software development anywhere. A bloke selling cuddly beefeater toys is going to have to be based near the Tower of London (which is maintained by the state paying for it).
So, which do you tax? Well, the bloke selling beefeaters. What's he going to do if you tax him at 70%?Well, he might quit. But someone is going to step into his shoes. It's far more of a rent-seeking job than one based on innovation.
If you brought in LVT and CI, "mobile" business would flock here. They could move to all the cheap bits of the country and at least for a while, pay almost nothing in taxes.
TS, your general observation about the Homeys indirectly causing local unemployment ties in nicely with that Danny Blanchflower research.
Maybe they can pass the hat around to South Bucks to collect some compensation for all the extra unemployed rather than expecting taxpayers to foot the bill
M, wot? Make hard working hard pressed homeowners who have taken a stake in society pay for all the feckless layabouts?
We should be thankful for these Homeys preserving our Hallowed Green Spaces For Future Generations, in fact, we should make the lazy scroungers pay THEM by maybe working as household slaves[continued page 94]
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