Aardman, the maker of Wallace and Gromit, has warned that the classic animated cartoon may be forced to move overseas. The studio's boss, Sean Clarke, said challenges in the UK could mean it is made abroad in the future.
Mr Clarke said that the company is struggling with competition overseas and tax relief issues. He also warned there was a skills shortage in the UK.
Speaking to The Guardian, he said: “Children’s television is suffering and what’s produced in this country will go off the edge of a cliff in the next couple of years, unless something is done. The ideas will still be conceived here, but they’ll be made elsewhere.”
Tax relief is a major issue, with animators being offered huge incentives to leave the UK. Studios can receive relief ranging from 37 per cent to 50 per cent in Ireland, France, Canada and the Canary Islands. In the UK it is just 25 per cent.
Mr Clarke said he receives calls from Spain, asking him to move Aardman to the Canary Islands, where the tax relief is 50%. He admitted he does "consider it".
But Mr Clarke also said Brexit has made it more difficult to attract European animators to the UK and has led to the studio missing out on European media funding. He went on to criticise the Government's decision to stop the Young Audiences Content Fund.
He said: “If you don’t have access to funding, then you have to make your budgets smaller or you sell rights in your project. What you’d probably lose is that real innovation of someone like Aardman that said: ‘We’re going to make a children’s TV series around Shaun the Sheep and we’re going to push the barriers about doing a series where no one talks.’
"When we did that, we were told ‘You can’t do that’, but we did, and it’s become incredibly successful.”
Aardman has made a number of successful animations including the Wallace and Gromit film series, the Shaun of the Sheep animated show and Chicken Run. It was established 40 years ago and has won more than 100 awards including four Oscars.
