A medieval castle, a Venetian canal and a Californian high school are at the core of plans to build the biggest film-making centre outside Hollywood on a site next to the M25.

They are three of the exotic back-drops revealed yesterday in a £200 million expansion plan for Pinewood studios, the historic home of the Bond films, the Carry oncomedies and more recently The Bourne Ultimatum.

Planning permission and investment are still being sought for “Project Pinewood”, which would double the size of the complex in Iver Heath, Berkshire, by building on 100 acres of adjacent green belt land.

The studio owners are confident that they will secure the necessary backing to build a beacon for the British film industry that will lure film-makers away from Eastern Europe.

The plans were presented to the London Stock Exchange yesterday by Pinewood Shepperton, the company formed after Pinewood purchased its rival Shepperton Studios in 2001.

Between them, the two studios have created almost 1,500 films and boast more than 30 film stages, two digital TV studios, a unique underwater stage and the largest stage in Europe. But increasingly, Central and Eastern Europe have begun to rival Britain as a location, partly because of the lower costs of shooting there.

The BBC TV series Robin Hood was shot in Hungary, Antony Minghella’s Cold Mountainwas filmed in Romania, Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist was made in Prague and Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was also shot in the Czech Republic.

Pinewood Shepperton believes that it can reverse this trend by creating a hub for technical expertise and replicating the most popular locations from around the world in one place.

As well as the castle, the canal and the school campus, the site will have a British suburb, a Roman amphitheatre, Lake Como and scenes from New York, London, suburban Chicago and Chinatown, Boston.

The proposals also include the world’s first purpose-built film and TV live-work “sustainable community” of more than 2,000 homes, which Pinewood aims to make “as green as possible”, and vocational training facilities for film and television students.

Ivan Dunleavy, Pinewood Shepperton’s chief executive, said: “This should make us more competitive. It’s a unique proposal: the largest centre for film-making outside the US. While we are in a high-cost territory, and we can’t do anything to avoid that, people like to film in Britain because of the efficiency and skills that people have.”

Pinewood was founded 70 years ago by Sir Charles Boot, a Sheffield building tycoon, Lady Yule, an eccentric heiress, and J. Arthur Rank, a Methodist flour magnate. It was famous for its luxuries: the largest private swimming pool in Europe, a Turkish bath, spectacular gardens and the library from the ocean liner Mauritania in the boardroom. In its heyday in the 1950s and 60s, as well as producing the Bond and Carry on franchises, the studio made a fortune out of Norman Wisdom’s clowning.

After a series of triumphs and disasters since then, Pinewood has enjoyed strong business recently, with Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 28 Weeks Later, Casino Royale and The Da Vinci Code, as well as the TV series Extras and The Weakest Link.

Prominent figures from the British film industry struggled to contain their enthusiasm for the project yesterday. Richard Curtis, the writer and director responsible for Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeraland Notting Hill, said: “I think this is a tremendous project, particularly for people who don’t want to spend most of their lives in Eastern Europe. The practical benefits could be enormous, creating movies in one place – not several locations – and being next to the best film facilities.”

Lord Puttnam, producer of The Killing Fields, Chariots of Fire, and Midnight Express, said: “It has the potential to be genuinely transformational.”

Stewart Till, chairman of the UK Film Council, said: “UK film is respected across the globe. We have world-class film-makers and they deserve world-class facilities. Project Pinewood would help secure the future of UK film for decades to come.”

Historic action

— Sir Charles Boot bought Heatherden Hall, a Victorian mansion, in 1934 to turn into a film studio and renamed it Pinewood because of the trees and because it suggested “something of the American film centre in its second syllable”

— During the Second World War it was used for storing supplies and housing the Royal Mint and Lloyd’s of London

— The British Oscar winners Great Expectations and Black Narcissus, above, were shot there but in the 1950s and 1960s the studio focused on lucrative populist films

— In February 2000 Pinewood was bought by a team led jointly by Michael Grade and Ivan Dunleavy and backed by 3i. It then purchased Shepperton Studios in 2001. Pinewood Shepperton floated successfully on the London Stock Exchange in 2004

Source: Times Database

Explore Film

• Film Reviews

• Trailers

• DVD

• London Film Festival

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010