IN Brief:
- McLaren Construction is main contractor for the Fairbanks Studios redevelopment at the former BBC Elstree Centre.
- The 266,000 sq ft campus will include five sound stages, workshops, offices, a café, and a media hub.
- The project reflects continued demand for technically specific UK production space on established brownfield sites.
McLaren Construction has started main build work on Fairbanks Studios, the redevelopment of part of the former BBC Elstree Centre into a new film and television production campus.
The project is being delivered for AXA IM Alts, now operating within the BNP Paribas Asset Management structure, with the former BBC Elstree Centre rebranded as Fairbanks Studios in recognition of its historical connection with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Planning consent was secured in 2025, enabling and demolition works are complete, and main construction began in April 2026.
Roughly half of the 16-acre site will be transformed into a 266,000 sq ft campus for high-end television and independent film production. The remaining part of the estate has been upgraded by the BBC, which continues to use the retained facilities under a long-term lease for EastEnders production.
The brownfield redevelopment will more than quadruple the site’s stage space to around 100,000 sq ft across five sound stages ranging from 16,000 sq ft to 21,000 sq ft. New workshops, production offices, a café, base camp, backlot, cycle and parking facilities, and a 58,000 sq ft Media Hub will support the stage accommodation.
McLaren’s supply chain includes Harringtons Builders for groundworks, Aarsleff for piling, SCWS for steelwork, Halsall for MEP, and Northern Cladding for cladding. The project is expected to become operational in late 2027.
Specialist studio construction sits in a demanding part of the buildings market. The facilities need large-span structures, acoustic separation, resilient building services, high electrical loads, production logistics, secure access, heavy doors, flexible office and workshop space, and the ability to change internal use quickly between productions. The design and delivery challenge is closer to a hybrid of industrial, commercial, and performance space than a conventional workplace scheme.
Brownfield delivery adds another layer. At Elstree, the redevelopment must deal with legacy buildings, live operations on the retained BBC estate, surrounding residential areas, existing services, constrained logistics, and the cultural value of a site tied to more than a century of screen production. Technical advisers on the project have also highlighted drainage, flood, utilities, acoustic, and whole-life carbon work as part of the design approach.
Fairbanks Studios is entering a more disciplined development market than the one that drove the first wave of studio expansion earlier in the decade. Demand for UK production space remains structurally strong, but funding conditions, construction costs, and occupier caution have raised the bar for projects that want to move from consent to delivery. Schemes now need a clearer occupational case, stronger sustainability credentials, and greater confidence around long-term operating performance.
The Elstree site has advantages that many greenfield or peripheral projects lack. It sits within an established screen cluster, carries a recognised production heritage, and already contains studio activity. Those factors reduce the risk of creating an isolated production campus without the surrounding labour, supplier, and operational ecosystem needed to support it.
For contractors, the project reinforces the move towards buildings where operational requirements drive the construction brief from the outset. Studios, laboratories, healthcare facilities, data centres, and advanced industrial buildings all require closer integration between shell, services, specialist fit-out, utilities, and end-user workflow. A standard building envelope is no longer enough where the asset’s commercial value depends on technical performance.
By late 2027, Fairbanks Studios is expected to add a new production campus to one of the UK’s best-known screen locations. Between now and then, the project will test how effectively specialist building work, constrained brownfield logistics, and live-estate coordination can be brought together on a site where heritage and future production capacity are closely linked.
