A Hollywood composer with credits ranging from Jason Bourne to The Sandman is understood to be behind fresh plans to create a recording studio in Wells.
A new planning application has been submitted to Somerset Council for 3 Mountery Close, seeking permission to change the property from a home to a music studio, as well as alter the link between the house and garage and build rear extensions. The application, reference 2026/1520/FUL, was registered on Monday, 10 August and remains awaiting a decision.
The applicant is listed in the council’s public notice as D Buckley, and the scheme is understood to relate to Emmy-nominated composer David Buckley, a former Wells Cathedral chorister and Wells Cathedral School pupil.
Buckley has built a career scoring major film and television productions, including Jason Bourne, Nobody, Greenland, Papillon, The Nice Guys and Ben Affleck’s The Town.
His television work includes Netflix series The Sandman and The Lincoln Lawyer, as well as Your Honor, Evil, The Good Wife and its spin-off The Good Fight. His work on The Good Fight earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music.
But despite a career firmly rooted in film and television, Buckley’s musical story began much closer to home.
He attended Wells Cathedral School and sang as a chorister at Wells Cathedral, where one of his earliest brushes with film music came while performing on Peter Gabriel’s score for Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. He later studied music at Cambridge University before moving to Los Angeles in 2006.
Those Wells links have continued. Cathedral choristers have worked on music composed by Buckley, while his Lamentations was performed by massed choirs from Wells Cathedral School and Wells Cathedral in 2025.
The latest planning application is not the first attempt to establish a music studio at 3 Mountery Close.
An earlier application, 2025/0125/FUL, also sought to change the house to a music studio and extend the property. Wells City Council considered that scheme several times during 2025 as additional information was submitted, including a noise impact assessment and flood risk assessment.
City councillors initially recommended approval subject to clarification over soundproofing and parking, before later raising concerns as the application developed. By November, the council’s Planning Advisory Committee had returned to a recommendation of approval following a review of the information available on the planning portal.
The fresh 2026 proposal again seeks a change of use from a dwelling to a Class E music studio, alongside changes to the roof over the link between the house and garage and new rear extensions.
If approved, it would give one of Wells’ more internationally successful musical exports a permanent studio base back in the city where his career began — a fairly sizeable leap from cathedral choir stalls to Hollywood soundtracks, and then back again.
The application can be viewed through Somerset Council’s planning portal by searching for reference 2026/1520/FUL.
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