Six new sound stages, a 936-space car park and a new A308 exit: officers back Amazon's Bray Studios plan, and councillors decide it on 22 October.

Amazon’s plan to rebuild and expand Bray Studios goes before councillors on Thursday 22 October, with officers recommending approval. The studio sits on the A308 Windsor Road at Water Oakley, about 5km north-west of Windsor and 6km south-east of Maidenhead.

The application, 26/01634/FULL, is the only planning item at an extraordinary meeting of the Maidenhead Development Management Committee. It starts at 6pm in the Council Chamber at Maidenhead Town Hall (agenda).

Amazon Digital UK wants the site to host two large productions at once, which the officer report describes as two films or two series running side by side. That is what Amazon MGM Studios says it needs.

The quick answer

  • What: six new sound stages, four workshops, a multi-storey car park and a new exit onto the A308 at Bray Studios.
  • When: decided at 6pm on Thursday 22 October, Maidenhead Town Hall.
  • Recommendation: approve, subject to a Section 106 legal agreement signed within six months.
  • Objections: two letters from residents. No statutory consultee objects.

What Amazon wants to build

The officer report lists the main parts of the scheme (officer report):

  • six new sound stages, labelled A1 to A3 and D1 to D3, totalling 13,837 square metres
  • the 1950s Stages 1, 2 and 3 kept, where Hammer made its horror films, plus two temporary stages made permanent
  • four new workshop buildings, totalling 11,982 square metres
  • Down Place, the Grade II listed house, restored as the main production office
  • a new two-storey production office and an outdoor backlot in the north-west corner
  • a multi-storey car park with about 936 spaces and a public café on the ground floor, taking the site to 1,200 parking spaces in all
  • the farm shop moved outside the security fence, next to the visitor entrance

Southfields, a vacant house, would be demolished. So would Waterford House, Water Oakley Farmhouse, Water Oakley Cottages and Steadings, which have been used for filming since the 2022 permission.

The tallest new buildings are Stage A at 18.35 metres and Stage D at 18.38 metres. The car park reaches 18.2 metres at its lift housing. The stages approved in 2022 had a ridge height of 17.5 metres.

It already has permission for a bigger studio

This is not the first plan. The council granted permission in March 2022 for nine sound stages and about 30,000 square metres of studio space (21/02245/FULL). That scheme was designed for up to three smaller productions at a time.

The new plan has less filming floorspace, about 20,000 square metres, but bigger stages. The officer report says the 2022 permission, as varied in 2025, has been started, so Amazon could build under it if this one fails.

The jobs and money claimed

The figures come from an economic statement prepared for Amazon by Nexus in June 2026, which the officer report summarises:

  • 470 full-time equivalent construction jobs in the Royal Borough, and 1,430 across the UK
  • 715 jobs supported in the borough once it is running, and 3,025 nationally, counting supply chain and staff spending as well as jobs on site
  • up to £4.9 million a year in business rates, subject to the rates relief film studios get
Bar chart of jobs forecast for the Bray Studios expansion: 470 construction jobs in the borough, 1,430 construction jobs UK-wide, 715 jobs in the borough once running, 3,025 UK-wide once running. Full-time equivalent, including indirect and induced jobs.
The applicant's own forecast, not an independent one. Chart by Windsor Today.
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These are the applicant’s forecasts. The supporting letters, which the report summarises together, quote different figures: about 3,285 full-time jobs across the UK, 1,735 of them in Berkshire, and £46.6 million a year in production spending.

Who objected, and why

The council wrote to 21 neighbours and advertised the plan in July. Two residents objected, one from Water Oakley and one from Maidenhead. Their points included:

  • the A308 is narrow and congested, and the new roundabout would mainly help traffic from Windsor turn right into the site
  • for residents, getting in and out of Down Place would become “an impossible and dangerous manoeuvre”
  • the scheme “resembles a closely packed factory estate” visible from the Thames towpath opposite
  • outdoor filming on the backlot “at all hours, day and night” would disturb wildlife and neighbours
  • a protected orchid grows in the area

Three letters supported it: a neighbour, Thames Hospice, which runs its hospice at Bray, and Once Upon a Bus CIC, a Bray-based community company. The British Film Commission and Resource Productions CIC also back it.

Bray Parish Council does not object. It asks for conditions requiring:

  • an employment and skills plan
  • a traffic management plan for peak times
  • native trees at least three metres tall along the A308 frontage

The harm officers accept

The council’s conservation officer finds a moderate degree of harm to the setting of three groups of listed buildings, mainly because of the scale and height of the new stages:

  • Down Place itself, Grade II
  • Clock Tower House and Toad Hall, the Grade II houses next door
  • Oakley Court Hotel, Grade II*, mainly from the D stages on the eastern side

Officers say the restoration of Down Place, the jobs and the national push for studio space outweigh that harm.

Traffic on the A308

The report expects location shoots to generate 65 to 130 one-way vehicle trips a day, depending on whether one or two large productions are filming. Today the average is 40. Officers say that will not cause congestion.

The legal agreement and highway works would deliver:

  • the roundabout on the A308 already approved in 2022
  • a second exit onto the A308, with a pedestrian crossing
  • a 3 metre shared footpath and cycle path along the verge in front of the site
  • a new bus stop at the main entrance
  • an on-demand shuttle bus for production staff to Maidenhead station and both Windsor stations

Amazon would also pay £561,470 into the council’s carbon offset fund, deliver a biodiversity net gain kept for 30 years, and join the Visit Windsor partnership for three years.

Night shoots, lights and pyrotechnics on the backlot would be covered by a noise management plan. The studio’s existing practice of warning neighbours about night filming would continue.

What it means for you

  • If you drive the A308 between Windsor and Maidenhead: a decision for approval means a roundabout and a second junction at the studio, and a construction period whose routes are still to be set in a construction logistics plan.
  • If you walk or cycle that road: the scheme adds a 3 metre shared path along the studio frontage, where there is only a verge now.
  • If you live in Water Oakley or Down Place Lane: the report’s conditions on backlot noise, lighting and traffic management are the ones to read.
  • If you are looking for work in film and TV: Bray Parish Council and the applicant both point to an employment and skills plan, and the supporting letters mention up to 20 trainees per major production.

The meeting is open to the public and the council streams it on its YouTube channel. We will report the decision. Our planning news page tracks other big applications in the borough.

Sources