The Street has won a load of awards and a hundred times the weight in fans. It only serves to further my thinking that Jimmy McGovern can do no televisual wrong. With that, I’m a little cut up at the news that the current series of the BBC One drama is set to be the last ever. Why? All because of cuts at ITV Studios in Manchester, where the show is made. On BBC Radio 4′s Front Row, McGovern said that he wouldn’t take the drama to another producer when ITV’s Manchester drama department is scrapped as part of money saving cuts by ITV. That means no more episodes of The Street when the current series finishes.

Related: Reviews of The Street

McGovern said: “It’s finished now because ITV have closed down that drama unit. I am sure that’s why Michael Grade left because it was a content-led revival, he said, and they have closed down the producers of the best content.”

He continued that The Street’s “wonderful” executive producer Sita Williams had been informed that the show has not been making enough money for ITV Productions.

“But I think it was,” he added, saying of a drinks party for those involved in the show recently that turned into a wake: “We all got drunk – we all sobbed.”

An ITV Studios spokesman said: “If Jimmy McGovern wanted to write another series of The Street and the BBC wanted to commission it, then we would be delighted to produce it. As with any ITV Studios production, it would be fully resourced in order to deliver the same level of high-quality that is seen on screen during this year’s run of the award-winning series.”

McGovern said he wouldn’t want to take the drama to another producer: “I wouldn’t want to, it belonged there. All the people have gone. You live and breathe with people you walk into busy rooms and see people working hard, the casting, the make up the wardrobe even the receptionists, and the next minute they are all gone. It’s so sad – one of the best dramas ITV has ever made and it’s gone.”

Is McGovern giving up and cutting his losses?