HC Deb 19 July 1982 vol 28 cc22-3W
Mr. W. Benyon

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about independent local radio for Milton Keynes.

Mr. Homewood

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about independent radio for Northampton.

Mr. Michael Morris

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about independent local radio for Northampton.

Mr. Raison

On 14 July last year in his reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Sir G. Johnson Smith)—[Vol. 8, c.330–311 —my right hon. Friend announced his approval to the recommendations in the third report of the local radio working party for a further 25 independent local radio stations, including separate stations for Northampton and Milton Keynes. The Independent Broadcasting Authority has been re-examining the likely financial viability of these two stations and has in consequence sought his agreement to a revision of these two proposals so that Northampton and Milton Keynes would be serviced by separate stations, but associated so that some programming would be common to both.

My right hon. Friend has decided, after consultation with the right hon. and hon. Members whose constituencies could be affected by the proposed change and with the IBA, to approve the revised proposals. The authority intends as a first stage to advertise the contract for the Northampton station; and it plans also to advertise the Milton Keynes station within the next few years, subject to the availability of frequencies and of site and planning permission for the transmitters.