Trust and money

Aunty's new governing body, the BBC Trust, has unveiled proposals to give BBC audiences greater involvement in its decision making.

This is welcome news but it remains to be seen whether such measures will have any effect in providing deprived licence-payers with they actually want. Here in Cheshire, we are well used to broken promises - witness the recent abandoning of plans to provide us with a BBC Radio Cheshire...

The BBC Trust will only earn credibility if it can ensure that people are given equality of service. It's all very well promising to listen to people's views. The real test is whether the Corporation is willing to translate that into action.

The financial breakdown of the licence fee makes interesting reading. The cost per household per month for the licence is £10.96. Of this, £0.75p goes to funding 40 local radio stations - Cestrians are paying that for county stations all over the UK except in Cheshire. And the BBC's 240-plus websites cost a mere 49p a month, yet they claim they cannot afford to provide one measly news page for Cheshire because of the recent budget cutbacks. Yet it would cost not even £0.000000001p per month to give us a Cheshire page on BBC News Online.

If you want to let the Trust know how unfairly you think you are being treated as a licence payer, get in touch with them.

This campaign will be making an official representation to the Trust, but the more individuals who make their views known too, the better.