Essex gets £8m in four years from location shoots

When Practical Magic 2 spent a chunk of its Hollywood budget in Essex, it meant film and TV spending across the county had reached almost £8m in just under four years.

Epping Ongar Railway received "quite a high figure" for the use of its 1960s carriages for a scene with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman.

That brought the total estimated spend to approximately £7.8m since the 2022-23 financial year, according to the Essex Film Office, a specialist unit that acts as the main point of contact for film and TV productions.

The county's multi-million economic boost has benefited landowners, caterers, actors, extras and local businesses.

Beacon Hill Fort in Harwich has been a coastal defence site since Henry VIII and was used during World War One and World War Two.

Owner Barry Sharp said he would never charge visitors - donations and filming gigs were "the only way we survive".

The 75-year-old told the BBC that the site had started off "a bit camouflaged" from the outside world.

Sharp said his only revenue came from donations, "lots of ghost hunters" and camera clubs.

"They come from all around the country," he added.

But when film producers called, including the team that made Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey, he could earn about £6,000 a week.

Sharp said it was "unbelievable" for the fort, and helped maintain it.

He said he was so grateful to crews that he liked looking after them.

"When they spend the day, I like to feed them," he said.

"We give them lunch."

Safe Fire Protection (SFP) in Rayleigh generates "about £5,000" a year for the work it does on film and TV sets.

Owner Jay Leslie, 35, said he worked regularly with ITV's The Bill.

SFP assesses locations for any dangers and gives advice.

He said: "If they're blowing something up, perhaps, you need a couple of fire engines here. But obviously, that's not something that the county fire and rescue services would go out for.

"They can't sit on stage at the film scene all day."

He said film and TV was a "very small segment" of their turnover, but he had the capacity to help more studios.

Sarah Hardy is a food artist from Sible Hedingham whose first gig was making a cake for Channel 4's comedy series Peep Show.

Since then, she has made giant strawberries for Wuthering Heights and beetles for Frankenstein, but credits her success to simple word of mouth.

"All that's happened, just to unglamorise it, is that a couple of people have got me in their address book.

"You need to put a premium on the work because they also require it incredibly quickly. You drop everything to work for them and they have the budget."

"It's really exciting... I get to be part of something else, part of a bigger thing, but I think it bodes really well for Essex."

A Southend-on-Sea-based company stores valuable props for film and TV productions.

Michelle French, a co-founder of CAMA Asset Store, described the scale of film production spending in Essex as "fantastic news".

"In simple terms, we take the props, sets and costumes from film and TV productions and store, track and reuse them so nothing valuable goes to waste.

"We actually started out working with corporate clients, but film and TV now makes up around 90% of what we do."

She added that it gave "beautiful set pieces and costumes a second life rather than sending them to the skip".

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