Kay Mellor’s hit lottery drama is back for a fourth series with a plot line that whisks viewers from the rural border towns of the Yorkshire Dales to the glamorous high-rolling world of Monaco. The BAFTA-award-winning Yorkshire writer looked to Otley, Ilkley and Wharfedale for filming locations for this series – an area Mellor knows well.

The Syndicate series 4 follows a group of low-paid kennel workers in Yorkshire struggling to make ends meet, who are duped out of a winning lottery ticket worth £27 million by a charlatan friend. Intent on tracking down the man who stole their winnings (Frank, played by Neil Morrissey), the young lottery syndicate follow Frank to the French Riviera, where a cat-and-mouse chase ensues.

Mellor’s starting point in Yorkshire was the filming location for Woodvale Kennels, which she found out near Otley. The Syndicate 4 world was built out from there, and encompassed filming in Otley Chevin, Ilkley Moor, Otley’s Market Place and Burley in Wharfedale, as well as West Yorkshire locations in and around Leeds such as the Leeds Town Hall, Golden Acre Park and Oakwell Hall in Batley.

Each series of The Syndicate focuses on a different group of lottery-ticket winners, but Yorkshire – Mellor’s home base – is always central to the cast of core characters. In the first series it was Leeds, in the second it was Bradford. The third series of The Syndicate was filmed around North Yorkshire, including Scarborough, Bramham Park and at Swinton Park Estate near Masham on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.