Fire Damages Iconic Liverpool Site Set for New Film and TV Studio
A fire has destroyed part of the Littlewoods Building in Liverpool, on the site that was recently unveiled as the base for a major new £50 million ($67 million) film and TV studio in the English city.
The building that was damaged was unoccupied and there are no injuries. About 50 firefighters tackled the blaze, which took hold Sunday evening, U.K. time. It was brought under control in the early hours but firefighters are still at the scene.
In June, Twickenham Studios and property developer Capital & Centric unveiled their project to create a 20,000-square-foot film and TV studio complex using the art deco buildings once occupied by defunct British department store and football gambling company Littlewoods, plus surrounding land.
The full impact on the film studio plans were not immediately clear, but a spokesman for the Merseyside Fire Service told Variety that the building is split into two wings and the the part designated for the studio complex is thought to have escaped major damage. Structural engineers are continuing to assess the situation.
A spokesman for the studio project told Variety that an on-site briefing between the studio team and fire and rescue officers is currently underway.
Adam Higgings, cofounder of Capital & Centric told the BBC he was hopeful the development will go ahead. “The walls still seem to be intact and, providing we can keep them up, we can still very much continue with our plans,” he said. “Twickenham are going into the east wing, the building next door, and other companies will be moving into the west wing which has been on fire.”
When the studio plans were unveiled, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said they were “a fantastic vote of confidence in the city’s booming film industry.” As the blaze took hold he tweeted: “We have worked so hard to secure funding and a partner to get it going, a real setback.”
Merseyside Fire Service area manager Paul Murphy said: “This has been a significant fire and extremely difficult for our crews to deal with due to the size of the building. However, crews have worked extremely hard to battle this fire and have prevented it from spreading into the remainder of such an iconic building.”
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