Cheshire East area reaps £2.5m from film and TV industry

The Cheshire East area has moved into the centre stage of TV and film production, with the industry’s economic value to the borough rising to an all-time high.

According to Cheshire East Council, production companies spent over 182 days working on films, television programmes and adverts in the borough in 2014, with £2.5m spent in the region’s shops, restaurants and hotels as a result.

Most recently, Bunbury has joined Styal Mill and Tatton Park as a popular filming location, with scenes from ITV’s wartime drama Home Fires shot in the village.

The executive producer of Home Fires, Catherine Oldfield, said: “We looked all over Britain and Bunbury was the only place we found where we could build a composite village out of certain elements of the landscape.

“Everyone was very welcoming. You are really spoilt for choice in Cheshire for places to eat, places to go out. It’s a real gastro part of the world.”

She added: “I would definitely recommend this part of Cheshire as a place to shoot a film.”

Statistics from the organisation Creative England show that 41 titles utilised locations in the Cheshire East borough for filming, including BBC crime drama Peaky Blinders, period detective series Foyle’s War and a multi-million pound Tarzan film.

Cheshire East leader Michael Jones commented: “This is astonishing. Three years ago the economic value from productions was just £600k. Now we are at £2.5m.

“While some of the production companies involved are based at MediaCity in Manchester, many are from other parts of the country, including London.”

He added: “And they often hire local people and local crews to make it happen, so there is a real jobs benefit from all this.”