Rupa Huq MP hosts parliamentary launch of West London Screens report

West London has long served as a production hub for the screen industries. Ealing Studios is the oldest continually working studio facility for film production in the world, and the local area has proved a popular spot for on-location filming. Madonna recently paid a visit to Acton to film her comeback music video; Ealing’s streets have served as the backdrop for classic movies like Love Actually and About A Boy; and TV shows from Motherland to Big Brother have made the area their home.

On Monday 1 June, Ealing Central and Acton MP Rupa Huq hosted a glittering array of senior figures from across the UK screen industries for the parliamentary launch of West London Screens: The Hidden Engine of the UK’s Convergent Screen Industries, a landmark report by the University of West London’s Professor Emily Caston, Director of PRISM (the Public Research Institute of Screen Media). The event provided an opportunity to highlight the cultural and economic importance of West London, and to bring the findings of the report directly to ministers.

The West London Screens report, commissioned by West London Business and nine West London local authorities, is the first comprehensive mapping of the sub-region’s screen industries ecosystem. Drawing on data from 6,842 companies with a combined turnover of £74.5 billion and encompassing 82 studios, the research reveals West London as the strategic heart of Britain’s convergent screen industries – spanning film, television, advertising, games, post-production, VFX, and immersive content – and argues that its 125-year-old industrial cluster is the hidden engine driving screen production across the country.

There were speeches from both ministers and sector leaders, each providing a unique perspective on the industry. Dan Tomlinson, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and MP for Barnet – one of the boroughs represented in the report – expressed the Chancellor’s commitment to engaging with the sector’s needs, and spoke on his experiences meeting local residents who work at the nearby film studios.

Jack Abbot MP, a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, pointed to the government’s Creative Industries Sector Plan – a ten-year roadmap – and a screen growth package worth £75 million, along with business rates relief of up to 40% for the next decade, as evidence of serious, sustained government backing.

Rupa Huq MP said: ‘It was brilliant to bring together leading industry figures who voiced sectoral challenges with top Parliamentarians including the tax minister who is able to do something about the plight of the creatives involved in west London’s screen economy. The term “world-beating” is so often over-used but in the case it’s genuinely the case.’ Neighbouring MPs from the boroughs that funded the research included Dawn Butler (Brent East), Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall, the seat in which Ealing studios is now situated) and John McDonnell MP (Hayes and Harlington).

Adrian Wootton OBE, Chief Executive of the British Film Commission and Film London, offered a global perspective, having returned from the Cannes Film Festival the previous week. ‘Right now we have more film, television and advertising – and certainly games – going on in this city and in the UK nations and regions than anywhere else in the world,’ he said. ‘There are more stars making films here than in Los Angeles right now.’

Charlie Ingall, Co-Founder of VERSA Studios – whose 600,000 square feet of studio facilities span London, Manchester and Leeds – offered a practitioner’s perspective, drawing on VERSA’s own experience to illustrate how West London anchors the national screen ecosystem. Productions initiated from the company’s Acton base had generated £45 million of spend and thousands of jobs in Leeds alone. ‘A strong West London is actually a strong UK,’ he concluded, ‘and it’s so important that we stay ahead of that.’

Photo Credit: Timothy Anderson