The Westminster Council Planning Committee voted unanimously last night to approve the application from MVS Partnership, a group that includes the Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, whose credits include "The Lion King," "Interstellar," and "Inception."
The directors of the firm also include Zimmer's long-time business partner Steven Kofsky and film producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, co-chairs of Working Title Films, the largest film company in the UK.
Maida Vale 8
The quartet purchased the site from the BBC for £10.5 million in 2023, and last year revealed plans to turn it into "the leading post-production campus for British film, television, and music."
The project team also includes Exigere (cost consultants), Arup (construction and maintenance engineers), DP9 (planning consultants), The Townscape Consultancy (heritage), Jonathan Cook (landscape architect), and GIA (daylighting).
Work on the project is expected to begin in October 2026 after the BBC relocates its music operations to a new Allies & Morrison-designed studio on the East Bank in Stratford.
Maida Vale Studios has been home to the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 1934 and has been used to record performances by artists such as The Beatles, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Amy Winehouse, Beyoncé, and Adele.
However, the 150-meter-long building, originally constructed in 1909 as an ice rink and now listed as Grade II, has long been under threat of closure due to high maintenance costs and its location in a residential area.
According to the proposals, large parts of the building will be opened up to create multi-story office and production spaces, combining film, music, and sound recording under one roof.
The Edwardian roof trusses of the building, which have been hidden under a false ceiling since the 1930s when the BBC converted the former ice rink into music and recording studios, will also be revealed for the first time.
Westminster Council stated that the opening of the massive steel trusses, each spanning 32 meters, will be a key heritage benefit of the building’s transformation, although it acknowledged that other parts of the scheme would cause some harm to the heritage.
Historic England, which had put the building up for sale in 2020, did not object to the application, despite MVS Partnership’s intention to demolish two historic studios that were listed.
Maida Vale Studio
The "audio" wing of the building will house three refurbished studio spaces, a new rock-and-roll recording studio, 30 music rooms, five composer suites, and a restaurant with an outdoor terrace.
The "visual" wing of the site will contain a dubbing theatre, dubbing stages, a sound effects studio, editing suites, a cinema, and a range of flexible working and sectional spaces.
Zimmer has won two Academy Awards for Best Original Music for "The Lion King" and the 2021 remake of "Dune." His other works include "Gladiator," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Inception," "Interstellar," and "The Dark Knight Trilogy."
Working Title Films, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, is the film company behind movies like "Notting Hill," "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Darkest Hour," and many films directed by the Coen brothers.