FACILTIES FRIDAY: EMERGENCY SERVICES TO THE RESCUE!
Tucked away across a four-and-a-half-acre site in Secombe, Emergency Services Training Centre is not your standard production facility…
It was never conceived as a filming location or provider at all, but as a fully operational training environment for emergency responders – which it chiefly operates as today. That origin is precisely what makes it so valuable to television and film productions seeking authenticity, flexibility and access to real‑world emergency service facilities, from clinical environments to emergency vehicles, uniforms and trained support, all in one place.
At its core, Emergency Services Training provides ready‑to‑use, realistic emergency service environments that can be filmed, adapted and transformed to meet the needs of a wide range of productions. Fully functioning A&E halls, clinical corridors, treatment rooms and hospital interiors form part of the day‑to‑day training infrastructure, giving productions access to spaces that already look and feel right on screen.
The site first drew industry attention during filming for Crimes That Shook Britain in 2017, when a production team recreating events around the murder of PC Keith Blakelock needed credible emergency service settings that could stand in for multiple locations. Since then, use by the screen sector has grown organically, with Emergency Services Training now supporting a litany of local productions including The Responder, The Tower, Compulsion, Inside No. 9, G’wed and The Cage.
What distinguishes the facility is the breadth of practical resources it offers productions alongside its spaces. Fire engines, ambulances and police cars are available from across modern and historical periods, including vehicles appropriate to the 1980s. Uniforms for police, fire and ambulance services, in multiple sizes and eras, are held on site as part of training provision but are frequently used on screen. Professional casualty make‑up facilities allow realistic injuries to be created safely and efficiently, while trained staff and volunteers can support productions as extras where required.
For the production of Channel 5’s Compulsion, this collective capability came into focus when an entire road traffic collision was reconstructed on site. Vehicles, emergency response setups and personnel were assembled at Emergency Services Training so scenes could be rehearsed and refined before moving onto location, reducing risk, cost and time pressure for the production team.
Emergency Services Training also supported the BBC anthology Inside No. 9, using its on‑site train carriage for the Liverpool‑set episode ‘Boo to a Goose’, which opened the show’s final season. As described by the team, the production “put a whole tent over our train carriage and filmed it as if things were flying past”, with movement and scenery later added in through the magic of post‑production – resulting in a finished product that “to look at it, you’d think you were on a train and travelling”, and allowed the production to film safely, efficiently and under full control.
The site is also designed to support the practical realities of filming. A three‑phase electrical supply allows large‑scale lighting, cameras and monitors to be rigged. Classrooms regularly double as wardrobe, make‑up or production offices, while rooms across the building have been transformed into solicitor’s offices, interview spaces and general interiors, providing production beyond the typical, with even the team canteen and toilets featuring on screen, most notably in The Responder and G’wed respectively.
Emergency Services Training also frequently operates as a unit base, hosting productions that are filming elsewhere but require a secure, spacious location from which to operate. This role as a hub and controlled rehearsal space has embedded the facility deeply within the production ecosystem in Liverpool City Region.
New developments at EST continue to strengthen that relationship. A 20‑foot‑deep pool is currently being built for offshore survival training, already attracting interest from production teams. Its depth and controlled environment are unmatched nationally, and even design choices are being influenced by filming requirements.
Emergency Services Training’s value to the screen industry lies not in pretending to be something else, but in embracing what it already is: a real, working emergency services environment that understands how to support production needs and turn challenges into solutions.
Find out more about Emergency Services Training Centre here – Emergency Services Training Centre