Belle Doyle built a reputation as an experienced international networker who worked to bring The Railway Man, World War Z and other productions to film in Scottish locations, as well as organising the country’s presence at the Cannes Film Festival. Her sudden resignation brought warnings that Creative Scotland has shown a “lack of appreciation” for how location services can help to snare major film projects in a competitive market. But the arts agency said yesterday that Ms Doyle decided to resign during “an HR process”. “It was unrelated to any issues of commitment on our part to locations work,” a spokesman said. “We are totally committed to promoting Scotland as a place to make film, and to produce.” Ms Doyle was yesterday said to be at the Cannes Film Festival and could not be contacted. With a network of international contacts, she has been a key figure in organising Scotland’s annual reception there. She was head of Scottish Screen Locations, providing a free national service to film-makers in Scotland, with a digital library of more than 100,000 images, and the hub for a network regional film offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and other cities and regions. Creative Scotland was formed two years ago from the merger of Scottish Arts Council and the former film agency Scottish Screen, for which Ms Doyle had worked. Film location manager Stephen Burt said her departure was “very sad, a great loss to our industry”. He had worked with Ms Doyle on films from The Young James Herriot to One Day. He said: “We in the film industry feel we have been left with very few people who know our business. Belle was one of the few people in that organisation that knew and understood the needs of that film industry and now she is not there. She was the first point of contact with some of the biggest directors and producers in the world. “She was very, very good at it. She was such an asset.” Ms Doyle ran the locations department for nearly seven years. She was formerly the film officer for Dumfries & Galloway Council as well as managing a small art house cinema, and has a PhD in Hollywood film. Film-maker and writer Mark Cousins said she was “a kind of magnet for attracting people to Scotland”. Rosie Ellison, of Edinburgh Film Focus, the city’s film office, said: “She has been involved in every big production that has come here for the last few years, everything, she’s a great loss.” Her predecessor in the post, Celia Stevenson, said: “As someone who once ran the locations service, when it was a private company, I am very concerned that there may be a lack of appreciation of how important a really good, vibrant location service is to a country.” The Creative Scotland spokesman said: “This has nothing to do with our commitment to locations work. We are investing significant sums of money in that every year and we are going to continue to do so.”