Misplaced trust

Tell us something we don't already know!

The BBC Trust has acknowledged that Aunty does not do enough for licence-payers outside London. Sadly, we are well aware of this in Cheshire, where our county does not appear on the BBC's website map of England, we have no news page there and we also have no county radio station (plans for BBC Radio Cheshire have now been axed indefinitely).

The campaign will be making official representations to the BBC Trust over these issues. Watch this space...

Axed Cheshire "station" on How-Do

As we reported a few days ago, the BBC's allegedly advanced plans for a Radio Cheshire have been scrapped for budgetary reasons.

North-west news hub, How-Do, has reported today on the story and this campaign gets a mention!

A bad news day...

... but not entirely unexpected.

Earlier today, the BBC announced it would not be going ahead with plans to launch 5 new regional radio stations due to ongoing budget problems.

The Dorset page on BBC News Online carried a report on the fact that the proposed BBC Radio Dorset would not get the green light.

Needless to say, there was no trace on the BBC news website at all about the decision to scrap next year's launch of BBC Radio Cheshire. Without a trace of irony, we think it's fair to say that's because there is no Cheshire page on which to announce it!

We are not giving up the fight! We will continue to campaign for a Cheshire news page on the BBC website because we cannot accept that is unaffordable, budget cuts or not, and because 900,000 residents of Cheshire - licence payers all - are entitled to equal treatment.

Many signatories to the petition have made it very clear that they really want a regional radio station and we will continue to press for that too.

Please sign the petition if you have not yet done so - it is more important than ever to make sure your voice is heard!

Radio rumours

A whisper has reached News for Cheshire that BBC Radio Cheshire may possibly be launching in 2008...

Unfortunately, we didn't hear this from the BBC (now there's a surprise!). The tip came from a local journalist working on one of Cheshire's newspapers.

Searching the net for any info on this proposed venture reveals nothing at all, so I guess we'll just have to sit tight and see if our friendly journo is right - we'd love to see this news come true. On the petition, it's been astonishing the number of signatories who have voiced their fury at the lack of a county radio station even though the campaign started off as a demand for a humble web page on BBC News Online. So - fingers crossed, it may yet happen...

Depressingly, since we last posted on 23 September, the BBC has not published one single item of Cheshire news at all (no change there, then).

Here are last week's stories that Aunty could have reported:

The Tories won a crucial by-election in Gowy for Cheshire county council, strengthening their grip on power. They have also selected Stephen Mosley as Chester's candidate for the general election (which could be sooner than we think). Mosley is currently a county councillor as well as deputy leader of Chester City Council.

An armed gang has been targeting off-licences in the Chester area and members are possibly carrying guns.

A Crewe teacher was convicted of downloading child porn from the internet and is awaiting sentence.

Vale Royal Borough Council won an award - The Times Best Council to Work For, an annual award run by The Times newspaper to recognise the best of public service.

A campaign to revive the fortunes of our county's Cheshire Cheese was launched at Nantwich Food and Drink Festival over the weekend. Just six traditional producers (as opposed to factories) still make Britain's oldest-known cheese.

And - the best news this week - the Glass Slug project is officially dead. Official conformation came on an election leaflet during the Gowy by-election (see above).

All the news that Aunty refuses to tell you....

Tune in next week for more.