Pinewood Studios boss grilled over £200m plans

Accusations that Pinewood is already forging ahead with plans for a multi-million pound expansion were denied by the studio’s boss this week, reports the Slough Observer.

A crowd of 100 concerned residents from Iver Heath and Fulmer packed Fulmer Village Hall on Wednesday to see a consultation presentation by Pinewood Shepperton chief executive, Ivan Dunleavy, in which he assured the audience that the ambitious project was following normal planning procedures.

Project Pinewood, is a £200m plan to extend the studios by creating permanent working filmsets with street scenes from London, New York, Paris and Los Angeles, and to add more than 2,000 homes for staff.

The meeting called for answers from the studios about how the project would affect the traffic and infrastructure locally.

Many also fear the site will become a Hollywood-style theme park and others asked whether the project would still go ahead without the massive proposed housing development.

However the Pinewood boss said he had no answers yet to these questions.

One angry audience member said: “Your plans are going to totally wreck the area. Nobody here wants your project.”

Sylvie Lowe, of Pinewood Green, whose property would overlook the sets if approved, said: “What about us? There was absolutely nothing about people. When I am sitting in my garden I will hear all the filming, the lights and the noise.

“We are going to go back and create our own group, this is just the beginning. We have got to be such a thorn in their side.”

Sharon Parsons, also of Pinewood Green, said she would be ‘gutted’ if the project went ahead. She said: “They say it is not a theme park but people will want to come and see it. It will become a tourist attraction whether they like it or not.”

Mr Dunleavy said with the project the company is trying to win back work that would otherwise go overseas.

He said: “We believe this is an exciting and ambitious project. We are firmly of the view that it is of national importance.”

He faced accusations the company would take their plans straight to the Government for approval, but he defended his position saying they are going through the normal planning procedures.

Afterwards Cllr Ronnie Lamb, chairman of Fulmer Parish Council, said: “I think the Fulmer people were and are in a state of shock simply by the size and scale of what is being talked about. There is a very strong emotional feeling about what they are wanting to do to us.”

The company will be holding a public exhibition in the summer with more detail, when residents will be out in force demanding the answers they didn’t get on this occasion, before a planning application is submitted.

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