{"id":674075,"date":"2026-01-04T21:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T21:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/674075\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T21:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T21:31:16","slug":"scotland-and-wales-deserve-local-bbc-radio-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/674075\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland and Wales deserve local BBC radio | Radio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In his supportive piece on why the BBC is important to Britain\u2019s culture (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2025\/dec\/29\/bbc-story-britain-netflix-streaming-channels-nation\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The BBC tells the story of Britain in a way Netflix simply cannot. In the year to come, please remember that, 29 December<\/a>), Tony Hall makes a reference to how important Radio Cumbria is to the people of Cumbria, and tries to suggest the same is true for Radio Scotland and Radio Wales \u201cserving the nations\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In reality, and unlike in England, BBC Radio no longer serves local communities in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk\/scotland\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scotland<\/a> and Wales. For example, Radio Scotland\u2019s morning news programme tends to repeat the same news stories you can hear on Radio 4\u2019s Today programme, except where there are occasional news stories affecting the whole of Scotland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Radio Cumbria (as with other English local BBC radio stations) will include items about Carlisle, Kendal, Barrow and many other parts of the county and also report decisions and debates in local councils. Radio Scotland \u2013 based in Glasgow \u2013 provides no local community coverage in Scotland. As a result, residents of Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Fort William and so on have a greater affinity with their more community-based commercial\/independent local radio stations than the BBC. The same is probably the case in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk\/wales\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wales<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">If there is one thing the BBC could do to improve community representation in Scotland and Wales, it should break up these \u201cnational\u201d radio stations and emulate what it does in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/england\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">England<\/a> \u2013 a network of genuinely local community-based radio stations. With the ongoing decline in regional newspapers, the need for this is essential to give local communities the strong voice they deserve, but currently do not get.<br \/><strong>Stuart Walker<\/strong><br \/>Inverkeilor, Angus<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"><strong> Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tv-and-radio\/2026\/jan\/04\/mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\" data-link-name=\"in body link \" https:=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>email<\/strong><\/a><strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>letters<\/strong><\/a><strong> section.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his supportive piece on why the BBC is important to Britain\u2019s culture (The BBC tells the story&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-674075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115838968453366571","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}