The Syndicate: Owner of Yorkshire shop used as a filming location for Kay Mellor TV drama four years ago says people are 'still talking' about series as it debuts on Netflix

The Syndicate was written by Leeds actor, scriptwriter, producer and director Kay Mellor, who died on May 15, 2022.

It is about five members of a betting syndicate who win the lottery and each series follows a different syndicate; the third is at a crumbling stately home near Scarborough while the fourth is set between a dog kennel in Yorkshire and Monaco.

Part of the fourth series was filmed at a shop called Calverley News located in a small village between Horsforth, Pudsey and Bradford.

The series has been newly added to Netflix.

The shop owner Nilesh Mistry, who has lived in Calverley since he set up the business five years ago, told The Yorkshire Post: “We’re almost four years on from when it was first filmed.

“It is still available on streaming services like Netflix, it’s been on the BBC, people still talk about it, they talk about how this was a distraction at a good time during Covid.

“The film production team allowed people to watch and be close to the filming and feel involved in it. It’s something that people still remember and talk about over here.

“I’d like to think [the popularity of the series has revived]. People are still talking about it. It’s good to watch something and have an attachment to it and think that’s where we live, that’s my local shop and that’s what we get.”

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The Syndicate production team started filming at the shop in August 2020 during the pandemic.

Mr Mistry explained why he agreed to offer up his shop for filming.

“At that particular time, we were in the height of Covid, so for me that was something I was interested in,” he said.

“The way I looked at it was that it would be an experience I would never forget and for the community. Calverley is a little village in between Horsforth, Pudsey and Bradford.

“My general thinking was that this would bring something to the community during Covid, to help take their minds off of it. After that, once everything was agreed, they had a timescale about how they were going to prep the premises.

“They started in August that year. I committed to give my whole shop and the premises to the production team, so I shut my shop for two weeks.”

The shop was transformed from a convenience store to a Post Office.

“They made changes to the property and to the shop,” Mr Mistry said.

“It’s an easy to watch caper, it’s all Yorkshire-driven, my shop looks really good in it.

“My shop is a convenience store, but they changed it into a Post Office, so they made many changes. But as quick as they came was as quick as they left.

“They are doing a theatre production of The Syndicate. I think it was the last thing that Kay Mellor did [before she passed away].

“It was possibly the last production or filming that Kay Mellor must have done before she passed away recently. It’s in the theatres and it’s good to support these type of productions.

“We are a close-knit community and we will do our best to keep that going. If there is anything else that we can do to benefit the community, we will look at entertaining ideas.”