London was today celebrating an 18% increase in filming activity in the capital in 2005, consolidating the city's place as the third busiest production centre in the world after Los Angeles and New York.

In 2005, the total number of shooting days in London was 12,655 compared with 10,683 in 2004, bringing the average number of crews shooting every day in the capital to 35. The figures, which combine shooting for movies, TV and commercials and are collated by each of London's 33 boroughs, were released today by Film London, the capital's film and media agency.

Movie-wise, the capital played host to big-budget feature films such as The Da Vinci Code and the Wachowski brothers' adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel V for Vendetta, to homegrown productions such as Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering. Other notable films shot in London in 2005 include Michael Caton-Jones's Basic Instinct 2, football film Goal, Richard Eyre's film of Zoe Heller's critically-acclaimed Notes on a Scandal and Woody Allen's second non-New-York film Scoop.

The leafy and genteel west London borough of Richmond saw the greatest rise in filming with an increase of 148% on 2004. Other boroughs to report a major boost include Haringey in the north (up 130%), Wandsworth in the south-west (55% increase), and Southwark in the south-east (53% increase).

But the capital's most filmed-in location continues to be Westminster, home to the houses of parliament, the bright lights of Oxford Street and the seedier delights of Soho, with 2,231 shooting days, up from 1,937 in 2004.

Rounding out the top 10 most filmed-in boroughs for 2005 were: Corporation of London, the capital's financial centre (1051 days); south-central Lambeth (932 days); Camden in the north-west (891 days); Southwark (822 days); Wandsworth (765 days); Tower Hamlets in the east (716 days), Hackney in the north-east (670 days); with the western posh strip of Kensington & Chelsea (624 days) and Hammersmith & Fulham (526 days) bringing up the rear.