Stiff & Trevillion-designed plans approved unanimously by Westminster council yesterday evening

Stiff & Trevillion’s plans to transform the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios into a multi-purpose studio for some of the biggest names in Hollywood film and music production have been given the green light.

Westminster council’s planning committee voted yesterday evening to unanimously approve the application for MVS Partnership, a group including Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, whose credits include The Lion King, Interstellar and Inception.

The firm’s directors 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 UK’s biggest film production company.

Maida Vale 8

How the building will look when the overhaul is complete. Edwardian roof trusses which have been concealed from view since the 1930s will be revealed as part of plans to expand internal spaces

The quartet bought the site from th BBC for a reported £10.5m in 2023 and last year revealed plans to transform the north west London site into “the premier post-production campus for British film, tv and music”.

The project team also includes Exigere on costs, Arup as structural and services engineer, DP9 on planning, The Townscape Consultancy on heritage, Jonathan Cook Landscape as landscape architect and GIA on daylight.

Work on the scheme is expected to start in October 2026 after the BBC moves its music recording operations to its new Allies & Morrison-design studio at East Bank in Stratford.

Maida Vale Studios has been the home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 1934 and has been used to record performances by artists including the Beatles, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Amy Winehouse, Beyonce and Adele.

But the 150m-long building, originally built in 1909 as an ice rink and now grade II-listed, has long been under threat of closure by the BBC due to its high maintenance costs and location in a residential area.

The proposals will see large parts of the building opened up to provide multi-storey office and production spaces, combining film, music and sound production under one roof.

The building’s Edwardian roof trusses, which have been concealed beneath a false roof to all but maintenance workers, will also be revealed for the first time since the 1930s when the BBC transformed the former ice rink into music and recording studios.

Westminster council said the exposure of the massive steel lattice trusses, each spanning 32 metres, would be a key heritage benefit of the transformation of the building, although it admitted other parts of the scheme would cause some heritage harm.

Historic England, which listed the building in 2020, did not object to the application despite MVS Partnership’s intention to demolish two historic studios which had been included in the listing.

Maida Vale Studios

The BBC has occupied Maida Vale studios since the 1930s

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 external terrace.

The ‘visual’ wing of the site will contain a dubbing suite, dubbing stages, a sound effect studio, editing suites, a screening room and a series of flexible work and breakout spaces.

Zimmer has twice won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Lion King and the 2021 remake of Dune. His other credits include Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Inception, Interstellar and the Dark Knight Trilogy.

Working Title Films, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, is the film studio behind Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Darkest Hour and many films made by the Coen brothers.