Stiff & Trevillion-designed plans given unanimous thumbs up by Westminster council yesterday evening
Stiff & Trevillion’s plans to transform the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios into a multi-purpose studio for some of the biggest names in Hollywood film and music production have been given the green light.
Westminster council’s planning committee voted yesterday evening to unanimously approve the application for MVS Partnership, a group including Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, whose credits include The Lion King, Interstellar and Inception.
The firm’s directors also include Zimmer’s long-time business partner Steven Kofsky and film producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, co-chairs of Working Title Films, the UK’s biggest film production company.
The quartet bought the site from th BBC for a reported £10.5m in 2023 and last year revealed plans to transform the north west London site into “the premier post-production campus for British film, tv and music”.
Work on the scheme is expected to start in October 2026 after the BBC moves its music recording operations to its new Allies & Morrison-design studio at East Bank in Stratford.
Maida Vale Studios has been the home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 1934 and has been used to record performances by artists including the Beatles, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Amy Winehouse, Beyonce and Adele.
But the 150m-long building, originally built in 1909 as an ice rink and now grade II-listed, has long been under threat of closure by the BBC due to its high maintenance costs and location in a residential area.
The proposals will see large parts of the building opened up to provide multi-storey office and production spaces, combining film, music and sound production under one roof.
The building’s Edwardian roof trusses, which are currently concealed beneath a false roof to all but maintenance workers, will also be revealed for the first time since the 1930s.
Westminster council said the exposure of the massive steel lattice trusses, each spanning 32 metres, would be a key heritage benefit of the transformation of the building, although it admitted other parts of the scheme would cause some heritage harm.
Historic England, which listed the building in 2020, did not object to the application despite MVS Partnership’s intention to demolish two historic studios which had been included in the listing.
Locals have raised concerns that the heritage advisor had not assessed the loss of the two studios in its appraisal of the application. Westminster planning officers said in response that the original studio spaces had been rebuilt in the 1970s, and were now “accepted as being of only minimal significance, despite what the listing states”.
Five supporting roof trusses installed by the BBC in the 1930s will also be removed and the building’s corrugated steel roof replaced with a zinc-clad standing seam roof.
The ‘audio’ wing of the building will house three refurbished studio spaces, a new rock and roll recording studio, 30 music rooms, five composer suites and a restaurant with an external terrace.
The ‘visual’ wing of the site will contain a dubbing suite, dubbing stages, a sound effect studio, editing suites, a screening room and a series of flexible work and breakout spaces.
The plans received an enthusiastic response from councillors at yesterday’s hearing, with planning committee chair councillor Patrick Lilley saying: “I think it’s a hugely exciting creative proposal for Westminster and for London and for Britain.”
Councillor James Small-Edwards added: “Maida Vale has long been known for its music and its many musicians. One thing people know about maida vale often is the studios. I think it’s a really exciting proposal, to focus production and sound under one roof.”
The project team also includes Exigere on costs, Arup as structural and services engineer, DP9 on planning, The Townscape Consultancy on heritage, Jonathan Cook Landscape as landscape architect and GIA on daylight.
Zimmer has twice won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Lion King and the 2021 remake of Dune. His other credits include Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Inception, Interstellar and the Dark Knight Trilogy.
Working Title Films, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, is the film studio behind Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Darkest Hour and many films made by the Coen brothers.
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