Bottle Yard Studios: New £13.2m site opens in Bristol

More than 70 productions have been made at Bottle Yard Studios' original site

A film and TV studio is opening a second £13.2m state-of-the-art site in Bristol.

The new TBY2 facility adds three extra stages for Bottle Yard Studios productions to be made in.

Programmes like the BBC's The Outlaws and Netflix's The Last Bus have been made at the original site in recent years.

More than 70 productions have been made there since it opened in 2010.

The Bottle Yard is owned and run by Bristol City Council and the new TBY2 studio is just half a mile down the road from the main site in south Bristol.

It will mean more productions can be filmed simultaneously, taking the total number of stages available from eight to 11.

TBY2 is powered by a large rooftop solar panel system

The studio roof is covered by one of the largest community-owned rooftop solar panel systems in the country, which is expected to generate enough energy to provide power to local buildings.

Laura Aviles, Bristol City Council's senior film manager, said 135 jobs were created during TBY2's redevelopment works and more than 860 jobs are expected to be created over the next 10 years.

Around £12m of the total investment has come from the West of England Combined Authority.

Speaking ahead of the opening of TBY2, Metro Mayor Dan Norris said the site would allow the creation of "even more top-notch film and television and bring thousands of highly skilled jobs to the region".

"Today's official opening sends a strong message nationally and internationally that the west of England is open for business," he said.

The first show to be filmed at TBY2 will be an eight-part series called Rivals, based on the bestselling novel by Jilly Cooper.

It will be produced for Disney+ by Happy Prince, part of ITV Studios.