Film and television productions have long-term benefits

SARAH Montague may have joked about an Alan Partridge walking tour during a BBC Radio 4 Today programme piece about the premiere of the film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa in Norwich – but the frivolity masked a more important economic reality: that movies benefit local economies, frequently for generations.

As Yorkshire knows well, investment in film and television production has long-term benefits.

Forty years after The Railway Children was filmed on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, the locations still attract tourists. On Sunday July 21, Radio 4’s Open Country programme returned to “Herriot Country”, part of Yorkshire defined largely by the BBC’s television adaptations of Alf White’s largely autobiographical books about a rural vet. The final – seventh – series of All Creatures Great and Small aired on BBC1 as long ago as 1990.

Those programmes are still being repeated on digital channels, but it is nearly a quarter of a century since the production crews left North Yorkshire.

A piece about the Great Train Robbery on August 1963 in a Sunday newspaper a few weeks ago mentioned a “Heartbeat moment” – a reference to the ITV period drama set in the North Yorkshire Moors in the 1960s. That area has become known as Heartbeat country.

Coincidentally, the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway will be on screen again this month – in two feature-length dramas marking the 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery.

The production involved local people as extras on screen and brought business to the B&Bs 
and other firms in the Worth Valley.

Investment in television and films represents more than just developing the talents of actors and directors, make-up artists and set builders.

It means more than just knowing which locations may be appropriate for particular stories. It means thinking about the long-term benefits for areas that appear on screen, working with tourism organisations and local authorities to ensure that the apparent impermanence of a short, temporary production process is not wasted.

Calculating the economic benefits in terms of full-time jobs is far more complex than counting how many people can be taken off benefits when a new factory or shop opens.

The long-term economic benefits of screen investment are only now becoming properly apparent.

We are still in the early days of trying to quantify them, so their value can be measured within today’s spreadsheet culture.

Agencies such as Screen Yorkshire – based in a region, run by and with people rooted in the region who appreciate the (so far immeasurable) generational benefits – are integral to this.

The ethos is not about “re-generation” but maintaining economic activity so that “degeneration” never occurs and rescues will not be needed in 25 years’ time.

We wish Norwich well. That Alan Partridge is a fictional character is incidental. We appreciate the importance of such characters. Haworth would still be an unknown village without Heathcliff and Cathy. We hope visitors will be following that walking tour for many years ahead – before coming to Yorkshire to see what we have 
to offer.

From: Fiona Lemmon, Clifton Byres, Clifton, Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

THE recently published shortlist for the 2013 White Rose tourism awards has given me sufficient food for thought that I’ve spent a little time drawing up a few statistics. This was prompted by my first look at the nominations and the dearth of representation by South Yorkshire.

There are 16 categories for the award and six finalists in each category i.e. 96 finalists in total. South Yorkshire has eight finalists, one in eight categories: six from Sheffield, one Rotherham and one Doncaster.

Barnsley doesn’t feature (let’s hope its newly opened museum is a finalist in 2014). Eight finalists out of 96 is 12 per cent.

York, on the other hand, has three times the number of South Yorkshire finalists at 24, i.e. 25 per cent. It has no finalist in four categories but has as many as four in a single category (tourism event). Interestingly, it does not appear to be scoring highly in the accommodation and food catering categories.

What conclusions should one draw from the shortlist?

As a resident of South Yorkshire (and incomer from the south), I appreciate what a beautiful and diverse area of Yorkshire and the British Isles this is.

It has a proud history and heritage.

I sense that there is insufficient funding and resources being made available to promote South Yorkshire as a tourist area. Or perhaps what money there is isn’t being spent in a cost effective way.

A White Rose Tourism award cannot be won unless an organisation or venue submits an entry.

Perhaps there is a shortage of personnel who have the time, interest and expertise to make the necessary application?

I hope Welcome to Yorkshire can take some action to ensure better figures for South Yorkshire next year.