EastEnders starts filming on troubled new £87m Albert Square set

EastEnders has moved into a new Albert Square, with the cameras rolling for the first time on a troubled £86.7m replacement for the BBC soap's set.

The show's original home at Elstree studios in Hertfordshire was only intended to be used for two years, but has lasted since 1984.

However, the nearby replacement has been plagued with problems, going way over budget and schedule.

It was originally due to be finished by 2018, at a cost of £59.7m.

After filming began in the new Albert Square on Tuesday, a BBC statement said: "The investment in the BBC's longest-running TV serial drama and wider BBC Elstree Centre, enables improved HD for our audiences and enhanced filming options.

"EastEnders production are now able to explore new areas on screen and writers, producers and directors have greater freedom to drive further creativity."

In 2018, a critical report from the National Audit Office, the public spending watchdog, said the old set was no longer fit for purpose, but that the new set wouldn't deliver value for money in the way that was envisaged when it was planned in 2015.

Some of the problems were "built into" the project from the outset and "some of the reasons for the delays and cost increases could have been addressed earlier by the BBC", it said.

The following year, MPs on the House of Commons Public Accounts select committee described the construction as "flawed from the start", saying the BBC was "complacent" and had made "fundamental planning mistakes".

At the time, the broadcaster "strongly rejected" the notion that it had been complacent, explaining that there had been "challenges along the way, including construction market issues beyond our control, and working on a brownfield site".