The Oscar-winning Twickenham Film Studios have been granted planning consent for a proposed ambitious expansion 'breathing new life into the area'.

The £10 million development will provide 60 new jobs on top of the hundreds of people who currently work on the site in St Margarets.

The expansion will create an extra 19,000 sq ft of floor space, including a new TV studio, and is predicted to boost the local economy by some £2.5million a year.

The project is the brainchild of TIME+SPACE Studios in partnership with the developer, General Projects, and will put Twickenham and Richmond at the heart of Britain's film and television industry.

They said: "The focus remains to benefit the local community while breathing a new life into the area."

Its aim is to turn the Studios into a market leading cultural destination with enhanced public areas, co-working spaces for local businesses, a café and a boutique cinema.

Teams at the Studios, which were established in 1913, have won a host of awards including an Oscar for sound on Bohemian Rhapsody and a Bafta for sound mixing on the World War One drama, 1917.

Most recently the Studios played a key role in the sound design of the latest Bond movie 'No Time to Die' in which they provided the foley, which is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to films, videos, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality.

Cara Sheppard, Managing Director of Twickenham Film Studios, said: "This approval means we can forge ahead at pace with our ambitious site wide plans for a centre of creative, tech and innovation excellence here in St Margarets.

"A campus that will nurture and welcome next generation talent, as well as attracting world renowned talent to further complement our current multi-award-winning artists and expert management team we have brought together all working to meet the ever-increasing demand of film and TV content."

Jacob Loftus, Chief Executive of General Projects, said: "Our work constantly seeks to find opportunities to support the arts and culture sector, so working on a project like Twickenham Film Studios is truly exciting.

"With its rich history and heritage, our collective focus is to future-proof this incredible facility – through careful expansion, enhancing public access and delivering a benchmark creative resource for the next generation of content creators."

Central to the transformation will be the construction of a new landmark entrance building on the St Margarets Road at its junction with The Barons.

It will include a café and heritage centre open to the public, which will allow people to understand the remarkable part the Studios have played in the British film industry and the many famous and successful films it has been involved in from silent movies through to Netflix.

There will also be a new hub for the creative industries in the area with workspaces for rent, which will bring people together. Significantly, there will be a new TV studio with audience seating for up to 150 people, together with refurbished film and sound production studios.

Some of the existing buildings will have an extra storey added to the roofline, but the new building and redevelopment will be within the existing boundaries of the studios.

The scheme has received support from many local groups, including the Barons Residents Association, which speaks on behalf of people living in the streets surrounding the site.

The group told Nub News in February: "We welcome this improvement project and the value to the community in respect of jobs and keeping our high street vibrant, which will be welcome especially after this Covid period."

Some residents raised concerns that the increase in visitor numbers will create traffic and parking problems. However, the borough's Transport Officer has confirmed that the car-parking, cycle-parking, servicing and access arrangements are 'acceptable' and the proposed development 'would not exacerbate local parking stress or lead to adverse highway conditions'.

The Studios are one of a network of film production sites owned by The Creative District Co, which is investing £500m across the country into the UK's booming creative industries.

The founders, Jeremy Rainbird and Piers Read, welcomed the decision by Richmond Borough Council's Planning Committee to approve the scheme.

They said: "The news that our planning application has been approved ensures the evolution of Twickenham Film Studios, building on its 113-year heritage for its next 100 years.

"We are putting in motion our vision to take this much-loved heritage site and bringing it into a new era as the very best in class; creating a tech and innovation hub in London, whilst using sustainable architectural designs across the campus.

"This is an ethos that speaks to our UK network of creative campuses that we are developing up and down the country."

Update:

The Studios could offer no guidance on when the work will start or how long it will take. It said there is 'no timetable to share at present'.