It’s lights, camera, Herts! County celebrates successful location filming
James Nesbitt on-set for Sky's new 10-part series, Lucky Man - Credit: Archant
St Albans has become the set of a number of TV and film productions over the past year thanks to county council-backed legislation allowing road closures for filming purposes.
Smug Oak Lane is closed for filming a new Sky Comedy-Drama called “Apocalypse Slough” - Credit: Archant
The Hertfordshire County Council (Filming on the Highways) Act 2014 was pushed through Parliament in 2013 and allows film and TV production companies to operate traffic management, such as temporary signals, or even to temporarily close roads.
In St Albans, the highest profile show to take advantage of the new law has been Apocalypse Slough, starring Rob Lowe (West Wing), Joel Fry (Game of Thrones) and Paterson Joseph (Peep Show).
Filming for the Sky 1 comedy-drama, due to air later this year, led to temporary closures on Smug Oak Lane and Drop Lane, St Albans, where the old HSBC trining facility doubled as a Scottish nursing home.
The county council estimates that the new law has brought £8.6 million into Herts, with a single feature film generating around £42,000 for each day of filming.
David Williams, cabinet member for enterprise, said: “I am delighted that Hertfordshire county council’s Filming on the Highways Act has helped raise the profile of the county as a place that welcomes production companies.
“We worked hard to get this Act through Parliament, which makes Hertfordshire only the second local authority in the country to have powers to close roads for filming.”
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James Nesbitt and Omid Djalili were spotted in St Albans this month filming Stan Lee’s new crime drama, Lucky Man, although the Filming on Highways Act was not invoked.
