Local radio cuts will leave some with disabilities 'voiceless' and 'disconnected', Leicestershire resident fears

Proposed changes to the BBC’s local radio station would leave some “voiceless” and “disconnected”, a Leicestershire resident fears.

Sarah Leadbetter, who is visually impaired, said BBC Radio Leicester is a lifeline to people like her.

Unable to read local news online, she relies on the radio to keep her informed about what is going on in her community, which businesses are opening or shutting, what her MP is doing and the impact of events on her doorstep.

Cuts to these services would also make it “impossible to find all the information BBC local radio broadcasts elsewhere”, she added, and would leave many “disadvantaged, disconnected and discriminated against”.

Local stations are also a chance for people to get on air and talk about the issues that affect their daily lives, she said. Ms Leadbetter added: “Without this opportunity many of us would be voiceless and our concerns left unsaid, unchallenged and problems unsolved.”

The BBC is proposing to merge radio output to produce regional programmes after 2pm on weekdays and over the weekend. All 39 local stations would maintain their own schedules between 6am and 2pm, under the current proposal.

The BBC’s response to an FOI request submitted by Ms Leadbetter reveals the broadcaster did not carry out an Equality Impact Assessment to ensure groups with protected characteristics – for example disabilities – are not unduly impacted by the changes. Ms Leadbetter said she is initiating legal action against the BBC over this as she believes it has breached its duty under the Equality Act.

The BBC app and website are “simply not accessible” to people like her who rely on screen readers or voice to text features, she said. There are also many who cannot afford to be online, she added, or who are not due to age or disability.

She said: “If local radio shows become shared across wider regions, properly local content will decrease, making it difficult for me and others to keep up to date with what is happening in our local communities and get a voice on issues we need to talk about. It would be impossible to find all the information BBC local radio broadcasts elsewhere, leaving us disadvantaged, disconnected and discriminated against.”

“If the BBC had bothered to undertake an Equality Impact Assessment or a formal consultation about the changes, all of these concerns would have been highlighted and it would have been clear that what the BBC is doing is completely and utterly wrong,” Ms Leadbetter added. “They are the public broadcaster and they should know better.”

In its response to the FOI request, the BBC said it had “looked carefully at how difference audiences access services across the day” in order to “ensure” it “protected the localness of the service where it matters the most”. Its decision to maintain output from 6am to 2pm, as well as live sports coverage and local new bulletins on weekdays, mean it will continue to reach “more than 70 percent of the existing local radio listenership”.

The broadcaster also said it has been “listening carefully” to audience feedback on the proposal and revised its plans to add extra programmes on weekday afternoons and weekday breakfast and daytime slows to reduce the size of the areas being served by a single shared programme. More people are consuming new online, the BBC response continued, but the company recognises the “legitimate concern that the BBC should do everything possible to ensure radio changes do not disadvantage any particular audience group.” The broadcaster will be reviewing audience listening performance at the end of next year to assess the “actual impact of the changes”, it added.

In response to the lack of an Equality Impact Assessment, the BBC said it “typically carries these out for closures or reductions of service which are characterised by changes that will limit audiences’ ability to access our public service in some way”. It gave the loss of an FM frequency as an example of this.

“We do not carry out formal EIAs on editorial or programming changes,” it added. “In the case of the BBC’s local radio change, we did not carry out a formal EIA as all listeners will retain access to a full broadcast schedule on all 39 radio stations in England, including fully local programmes between 6am and 2pm on weekdays, along with a full slate of live sport and local news bulletins.

“While we are increasing programme sharing outside peak hours, sharing between neighbouring stations has been a feature of the local radio network for many years and these programmes qualify as local output under Ofcom regulatory conditions.”

The National Federation of the Blind of the UK have also opposed the proposed changes. A petition set up by the federation has been supported by 230 organisations and 39 MPs. Sarah Gayton, street access campaign coordinator for the group, has called on BBC boss Tim Davie to listen to the public “strength of feeling” and put a stop to the proposal.

She said: “The BBC is trying to redefine what “local” means: it is very clear to everybody the BBC managers’ definition of what local radio is in fact not local radio.

“The BBC are regionalising local radio content at key times in the weekly schedule into large geographical areas. This will not work for the listeners who are reliant on local content at these times.

“This is discrimination. What use is online content when you are not online? What use is an app when you do not have a smart phone or access the content? What use is a website when you are cannot access it?”