UK Hollywood film studio set for 2024 completion in Berkshire

The Berkshire studios will have 18 sound stages, workshops, offices and post-production facilities

The construction of a state-of-the-art film and TV studio complex is nearing completion.

All 18 soundstages at Shinfield Studios, near Reading, will be in use early next year, with the entire Hollywood-style complex expected to be finished by the end of 2024.

Building work at the Thames Valley Science Park has been taking place for two years.

Media companies Disney and Sony have already begun using the studios.

Office space, 38 workshops and a nine-acre filming backlot are also under construction.

Shinfield Studios, part of Blackhall Global Partners, previously said it expected the studio to generate about £600m a year for the UK economy.

US streaming companies have already been using the studios for productions

The studios will offer a range of employment opportunities to people in Berkshire.

Joint managing director Ian Johnson said: "We've just begun taking our first steps tapping into the local community to build our own team...

"[We're also] contributing to industry efforts to develop skills and training opportunities through our work as a funding partner of Screen Berkshire."

Slice of Hollywood

Nick Smith, joint managing director of Shinfield Studios, said the studios now looked like the plans that had been dreamt up several years ago.

"Not only does it feel like a slice of Hollywood in Berkshire, it also offers producers everything that we promised," he said.

"That's to say a modern studio facility that has been carefully designed from the ground-up to meet all the needs of the most ambitious film and HETV productions - we really have considered every detail."

Joint managing director Nick Smith said the studios would be perfect for 21st Century filmmaking

The studios are about 30 miles (48km) from central London, as well as being close to the M4.

In 2021, Wokingham Borough Council approved Shinfield Studios' proposal but referred it to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, Michael Gove.

Mr Gove raised no objections to the hub and granted full consent.

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