Bristol’s Bottle Yard Studios – whose recent productions have included Poldark, Sherlock and Wolf Hall – have secured a £692,000 investment boost from owners Bristol City Council.
The capital investment, approved at the council’s cabinet earlier this month, will pay for improvements to the site, including new roofs, production offices and IT infrastructure. It follows a 65% increase in location filming in the city over the past year. 
The site, which operated for more than 50 years as a winery and bottling plant, has become an established base for film and television production in the West of England, attracting major UK and overseas productions of all sizes.
Alongside its eight stages, giant green screen studio, extensive back lot, workshop areas, production offices, and costume, make-up and dressing-rooms, it has also become a hub for businesses linked to TV and film production ranging from equipment hire to sound designers.
Bristol deputy mayor with responsibility for culture, Cllr Estella Tincknell, said: “Bristol’s film and TV industry is a thriving and diverse economy that generates jobs and last year saw inward investment of £16.7m.
“The Bottle Yard Studios has become a key cornerstone for this vital sector, working with Bristol Film office to attract high-calibre companies from London and the US to make their productions right here in Bristol.
“We’ve seen an increase in location filming across Bristol and every new production that chooses to film here has brought with it valuable business and employment.
“The Bottle Yard Studios project has added significantly to Bristol’s credentials as a filmmaking destination and its success is great news for the city. In just six years it has transformed a disused area of South Bristol into a major filmmaking hub, home to a busy creative community of 17 tenant businesses, whilst boosting industry skills, providing apprenticeships and linking up with local universities and colleges to provide a hands-on training environment for students.
“This investment represents our commitment to growing a strong and diverse local economy and will go a long way to securing further success.”
Site director Fiona Francombe, pictured above, added: “We warmly welcome this investment from Bristol City Council. It will enable essential site improvements that will help us maintain our reputation as a highly competitive studio space, capable of attracting the best in UK film and television production to Bristol.
“The funds will pay for new roofs on three of the Studios’ Tank House buildings, which house our main studio stages. Once these are in place we will work with the Council’s Energy team to install new solar PV panels that will reduce our future electricity costs. We will transform redundant areas of the site into new office facilities to be hired out to the production community, generating further income for the site. We will also install new IT infrastructure to enable Voice Over Internet Protocol, which will be rechargeable to our business tenants.
“The Bottle Yard Studios is a Bristol City Council project. Unlike the majority of other studios around the UK, we are not a private company. Any revenue generated by hiring out our space is invested back into site running costs and maintenance. Since opening our doors in 2010 we have achieved year-on-year growth whilst remaining cost-neutral to the Bristol taxpayer.
“We’re proud to have created a thriving production base with eight stages, offices and workshops, where there were previously disused warehouses. We are unable to seek private investment from elsewhere and therefore delighted that Bristol City Council has further endorsed us with this investment.”
Recent productions to film at The Bottle Yard Studios include: BBC One dramas The Living and the Dead (2015), Poldark (series 1-3, 2014-16) and Emmy award-winning Sherlock special The Abominable Bride (2015); Disney/ABC Studios’ US musical comedy Galavant (series 1-2, 2014-2016); CBeebies series Andy’s Prehistoric Adventures (2015); Golden Years (2015); Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning BBC Two drama Wolf Hall (2015); BAFTA-winning ITV drama The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies (2014) and Sky 1 HD comedy Trollied (series 1-5, 2011-2015).
