Eastenders’ new set is near completion but Queen Vic renovation is top secret

Albert Square’s epic renovation is nearly finished.

The EastEnders set is being overhauled in order to give the soap a face lift but the Queen Vic’s new and improved look is being kept firmly under wraps.

In the latest aerial images taken of the famous square has the public house has been expertly covered in wooden boards and scaffolding to prevent any snaps of the venues revamp being leaked.

The vast project is already £27million over budget and the BBC hope to impress fans when the work – that was supposed to be finished by August 2018 – is complete.

The new set is entirely built in brick allowing the soap to be filmed in HD – something they couldn’t do before because the crumbling sets were in such bad shape.

It replaces the current set at BBC Elstree Centre, in Herts, which was built to last just two years back in 1984 and has been beset by health and safety problems and maintenance costs.

Pictures of the set comes amid increasing controversy over the spiralling costs of the project.

The total bill for rebuilding the soap’s HQ is set to cost £87million of licence fee money rather than the £60million originally planned.

A damning report by watchdog the National Audit Office blamed the 45% increase in costs on over-optimism, lack of expertise and delays in construction.

The watchdog concluded the BBC was no longer delivering value for money on the project.

It found that the BBC had “inadequate expertise” in construction projects.

The EastEnders production team was not properly involved in the work on the set, and there was an 11-month wait to secure a construction contract.

The report cited “overoptimistic initial estimates of costs”, inflation, and delays on health and safety grounds such as dealing with asbestos.

The BBC has argued that the many problems encountered with the building work were beyond its control.

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