Gregory Campbell – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2014-06-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has for the issuing of further licences for local television.

Mr Edward Vaizey

As part of our Local TV licencing programme, Ofcom advertised the following locations with a deadline of 7 January 2014: Barnstaple, Basingstoke, Derry/Londonderry, Gloucester, Guildford, Limavady, Luton, Maidstone, Plymouth, Reading and Salisbury and Ofcom is in the process of considering the resulting applications. Out of these locations, Ofcom only received applications for five: Reading, Basingstoke, Guildford, Salisbury and Maidstone. The licences for Reading, Salisbury and Guildford have been awarded by Ofcom (on 3 June 2014) and Ofcom expects to be able to make a decision on the remaining two locations, namely Basingstoke and Maidstone shortly.

Ofcom plans to invite applications for further areas later this year.