Camden Council apologises for pollution from film shoot

Camden Council has apologised to residents and businesses in Fitzrovia for noise and air pollution from production crews during a film shoot in Fitzroy Square earlier this month.

Drivers of crew vehicles parked in Warren Street and Whitfield Street were told to turn off their engines on Friday 14 February after a complaint about noise and air pollution was made to Camden Film Office, which is run by Film Fixer on behalf of Camden Council.

Film crew minibuses were also parked on yellow lines in Warren Street and on a car club bay interfering with loading in a street that is often busy with delivery vehicles serving local businesses and residents.

Camden Council sub-contracts filming in the borough to Film Fixer which operates under the brand Camden Film Office. Its job is to manage filming and engage with community groups and “to ensure residents are aware of and happy with any proposals”.

In advance of any filming, letters and leaflets are supposed to be delivered to local residents and businesses with a map of any parking suspensions and location of large film equipment. Emails should also be sent to community and business organisations, including the Charlotte Street Association and The Fitzrovia Partnership.

On this occasion, some residents and businesses in and around Fitzroy Square did receive notice of filming and parking suspensions in advance of the film shooting.

“We are writing to you regarding our filming plans on Fitzroy Square,” wrote location managers Cristina Arcay and Emily Wright of Butler Sklar Productions Ltd in early February.

“We are continuing to work closely with the property owners and Camden Film Office in our planning and have shared a full breakdown of our presence at the location. A second letter will follow with finalised details for the shoot which will also include a visual map showing parking that we have requested.”

The shoot was for a forthcoming feature film called The Christophers, which stars Ian McKellen, Jessica Gunning, James Corden, and directed by Steven Soderburgh.

“The scenes will predominantly take place in and around the entrances of numbers 5 and 6 [Fitzroy Square] on our first day of filming, and inside number 6 on our second in order to minimise our presence outside on the square where possible.

“It is important to us, whilst we are working in your area, that our presence is of minimum inconvenience to you as possible, so please do get in touch if you have any queries or concerns,” wrote Arcay and Wright.

While parking suspensions were put up at the western end of Warren Street and many residents received the letters, those living and working in the eastern section of the street did not. Nor were advance notice parking suspensions put in place on the eastern section of Warren Street near the junction with Whitfield Street.

The Fitzrovia News obtained a copy of the letter only after filming had begun.

The first thing many residents and businesses knew of the filming was the presence of drivers in the street unloading on Friday morning.

A resident got in touch with The Fitzrovia News to say that, despite previous promises from Camden Film Office, advance notification was not sent out to residents, and drivers are again hogging loading areas and sitting in their vehicles with their engines running.

On Friday, two van drivers were parked in Warren Street and Whitfield Street claiming to be “Carbon Neutral” and “proud to support Teenage Cancer Trust” while running their engines for hours on end — both greenwashing and health washing while polluting the air, causing a noise nuisance, and presumably hoping no-one would notice.

The Fitzrovia News asked one of the drivers why they were running their engine and asked if it conflicted with the “carbon neutral” claim and their company’s support of the Teenage Cancer Trust. The engine was turned off but no response to our question about greenwashing was given.

On Friday afternoon, Camden Film Office, after receiving a complaint, contacted the film crew and told them to instruct all their drivers to stop engine idling.

But when filming restarted on Monday 17 February film crew drivers were again running their engines while parked outside homes on the northern part of Whitfield Street and on Grafton Way.

Two drivers were seen asleep in their vans at around 7.45am with the engines turned on. This suggests that Butler Sklar Productions Ltd did not provide welfare facilities on site for its drivers who had to resort to keeping warm by staying in their vehicles on a cold morning.

A spokesperson for Camden Council told The Fitzrovia News:

“Camden is a very popular location for filming, and we work hard with our film office and production companies to ensure that any disruption to residents and businesses is kept to an absolute minimum.

“Air quality is very important to us. Camden Film Office reacted quickly to a complaint, have urgently reminded this production that they need to ensure that their vehicles are not left idling and we would like to apologise to local residents and businesses for this,” said the spokesperson.

Film company Butler Sklar Productions Ltd was approached for comment but did not respond to our request. Camden Council’s press office responded on behalf of Camden Film Office.

Camden has also received funding from the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund for a project called “Cleaner filming for Camden’.

The Council says it is “one of the many things we are doing to improve air quality for our residents”.

Camden says it is “rolling out reports on generator and battery use for large-scale shoots in Camden, whilst creating a blueprint for other boroughs to follow”.

“We know it’s not as easy as simply ‘being greener’, so we are supporting productions in their transition to lower emission power solutions,” claims the council.

However, film crews using Fitzrovia as a backdrop are again failing to be cleaner and greener and Camden is again failing in its duty to make good on its environmental promises.

Many local residents are not impressed by the repeat of engine idling, use of internal combustion engine generators, and clogging up the kerbside parking by film crews.

“After the fact there are always apologies and promises to do better but nothing ever changes,” said a Fitzrovia resident who did not want to give their name.

“Every time there’s filming there’s engine idling and diesel generators outside homes. We’re hardly ever informed in advance anymore. Air and noise pollution in Fitzrovia is bad anyway and our streets can be chaotic with traffic. When film crews arrive they just make everything worse.”

In September 2022, Camden Film Office had to tell a film crew to remove noisy and polluting power generators and equipment outside of homes in Warren Street after they received complaints of late night and early morning nuisance. Earlier that year, another film production company apologised to residents and businesses after disruption caused by filming on Tottenham Street and Whitfield Street.

In 2017 the Camden New Journal reported that the “presence of film crews outside people’s homes has been a consistent source of complaint” from residents across the borough.

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