Council criticised for allowing ‘Heartstopper’ to film at “inadequate” school
Buckinghamshire Council has been criticised after a closed “inadequate” school was used as a filming location for Netflix series Heartstopper.
Burnham Park Academy near Slough was closed in 2019 following an Ofsted inspection which ruled the school “inadequate”, causing the school to close and students be sent to other schools.
According to the BBC, Buckinghamshire Council was reportedly paid £434,494 after the school was used as a filming location for Heartstopper, bringing about criticism from some residents.
Marie Hammon, a chairperson of Burnham Parish Council said that the school’s closure has left the community “neglected, isolated and abandoned”.
She also said: “I am astonished therefore that the council are making more than £400,000 from filming at the school.”
John Chilver, cabinet member for resources at the Buckinghamshire Council said to the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Since the [school] closure… a small number of ad hoc filming opportunities have taken place at the location requiring short term licences.”
He added: “The income made from these filming opportunities is used to offset the ongoing vacancy and security costs at the site, no profit is being made.”
The hit Netflix series – which released its second season last year – is a coming-of-age romantic comedy-drama focusing on the friendships and relationships of secondary school students at the fictional Truham Grammar School. Many of the show’s major scenes in season one are set at the school, and some were filmed at Burnham Park Academy.
In a four-star review of season two, NME wrote: “[Alice] Oseman conceived Heartstopper as a positive queer story to reassure kids that everything would be OK, so anything with the potential for drama tends to be immediately resolved by the characters having an emotionally-literate conversation, which can feel like watching an action film where the hero finds a bomb and, well, defuses it by cutting the correct wire straight away, with no tense music or drop of sweat expended.”
“It’s the kind of show you know will make people feel less alone; pure bottled joy and a restorative tonic in these turbulent times.”
In May last year, Netflix announced that the show had been renewed for two additional seasons.
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Alex Berry
NME
