Thank you to everyone who took the time to leave us a message - your support has made a real difference and was included in our application to Ofcom for a FM licence to provide a full time local community radio service for Northampton. 

Our licence application was successful so thank you very much to everyone who gave their support - we couldn't have done it without you!

LEAVE US A MESSAGE OF SUPPORT

Local Government

I am very pleased to support you in your endeavour as the town does need to be brought together to offer up voices and opinions to those in the unitary council who may not be fully aware of local issues especially in the present climate when meetings eg residents’ meetings are not being held except on zoom. Unfortunately those without broadband miss out and who are likely to be the most vulnerable. I am also aware of the developing young various music scenes in Northampton which should be encouraged as we have some great bands - I’m thinking of heavy metal band chrysallah who opened up the main stage at bloodstock Leicestershire but there’s lots more. - Cllr Janice Duffy, Northampton Unitary Council

It is lovely to hear from you and I am thrilled to hear of your exciting plans for local radio. During my recent time as Mayor of Northampton I had the honour of being interviewed by local radio stations, such as BBC Radio Northampton. I firmly believe that local radio is a wonderful way of supporting local businesses, sports teams and musicians and benefits the community by keeping them updated about local news and events. I wish you the best of luck in getting started and I look forward to listening to your station. - Cllr Tony Ansell, Mayor of Northampton 2018-19

I am delighted to offer my support to your application for a licence to operate Northampton Community Radio. The recent crisis has demonstrated how important it is for members of the community to feel that they are being kept in touch with what is going on locally.  This project looks as though it will achieve this by providing a service for a wide range of the Northampton community.  I wish you good fortune in your application. - James Saunders Watson, Lord-Lieutenant of Northamptonshire

"While it would not be appropriate to support one application over another in an open competitive tender, I wish you the best of luck in your application." - Andrew Lewer, Northampton South MP

Community Groups

Being active supporters of and participants in the Northants Inter-Faith forum, it is Northants' Buddhists' firm belief that the proposed broadcasting will facilitate and reinforce the unification of the counties' various faith groups, as well as provide helpful and beneficial information for listeners. Moreover, whilst the well-being and spiritual effects of music is proverbial, its therapeutic benefits are being confirmed by a growing body of scientific research.  As such, Northants Buddhist & Meditation Centre support unreservedly Revolution Radio's community radio application to broadcast in Northamptonshire. - Bob Pollak, Chair of Northants Buddhist & Meditation Centre

Thanks for your email to the Sikh Education Service.  I wish you the very best in this community venture, which I trust will benefit listeners of Northamptonshire if the programming meets the needs of the listeners.  Thanks and very best wishes to Radio Revolution. – Harkirat Singh, Sikh Education Service

Just a line to say in principle I would support your application for a community radio license for Northampton. Our Mishmash Inclusive Messy Church, supporting families with children with additional needs, serves families across the county; it would be great to be able to promote what we do through Revolution Community Radio. Wishing you success - Ian Hames, Co-leader Mishmash, Christ the King

I am Chair of the Friends of Abington Library and we would be very interested in taking part in this as we are expecting to be totally volunteer led as opposed to council run at some point this year and we will need all the publicity we can get and we will give you any support we can - Jan Anderson, Abington Library

I think this would be an fantastic idea for the community and we would be thankful to be able to be a part of it. Being able to advertise our Stay Up Late Karaoke and Disco events for people with disabilities for special needs at Club Palm Beach, would mean that more people would be able to benefit from the services we provide, which includes a safe environment, reducing social isolation and improving the confidence of those attending to name a few. Please keep us updated and hope you get the support you need. - La-Vern Haye, Club Palm Beach

Picture the Difference is a creative and performing arts organisation for young people and adults with additional needs (mental health issues, ASD/Aspergers, learning difficulties). We have a lot of talented participants who would be very interested in learning about radio programming and broadcasting as well as presenting items for your show. Working alongside Revolution Radio would help them to develop in confidence and improve their communication skills and also give them a chance to showcase their talents to the wider public across the county. Without doubt, we have some natural-born presenters amongst our group! Also, some talented singer-songwriters. Please take time to listen to a couple of tracks on our Soundcloud account. Songs link to the themes we use in our creative work, such as mental health, difference, and our recent theme 'The Names We Call Ourselves'. Hope you enjoy them - a radio play would go down a storm!! - Zoe Martin, Creative Director, Picture The Difference

Thank you for raising this. Access to a local radio station could be useful to us in generating greater awareness of our services to life-limited and disabled people - Festival Spirit

This sounds like a fantastic idea and we would support the any project that helps bring our community together. We already have links with other similar projects in the area. We are always keen to promote what we do and I have done four or five live interviews over the past 12 months. - David Pickles, Sea Cadets

Sounds like a great idea. I’d love to have another route to let people know about my business and classes. - Sarah Silsby, Sing and Sign Northants

I think this is a great idea - Karl, Stagecoach Northampton

We feel that this will be a very beneficial opportunity for those in our area and hope that it will also not only be an informational central opportunity, getting into homes the local support available to our community, but also start to encourage people to venture out (Socially Distance Compliant) and start to reduce the mental health issues being faced at this moment in time. - River, Rush2TheDen

This sounds really exciting and I'd like to support your application if I can. - Zoe Martin, Picture The Difference CIC

We have seen the impact being in local radio for interviews has had for our business. We feel it it vital to the local community to have a local station that reflects the community it's based in.  Just yesterday I had a meeting with the organiser of headlands helping hands and we spoke of the impact of Covid 19 in the community, there are still many people afraid to go out and we are looking for a local voice to inspire and reassure people.  We as a organisation are looking at how we could create and promote content that helps people with their mental health, so would be very interested in talking to you about if that possible. I have contacts with many inspirational speakers who we could get on a show. I am also part of the UK samba/bralician music scene which I would love to hear on the radio. - Sammuel Yisrael, Sol Haven

We received your email here at Workbridge and just wanted to add to the voices sharing the need for a community radio station in Northampton.  I think it would make a lovely contribution to the not-for-profit and charity sector in Northampton, helping to support local causes and promote more positive news.  For us, it would be great to share with Northampton residents more about who we are and how we help people. We also think that some of our service users would love to volunteer on a radio station and learn valuable experience working in media and broadcasting.  Good luck with the station application. We look forward to hearing from you. – Alex Simmons, Workbridge

Sport and Fitness

We would certainly welcome an additional platform to get club info on events out into the community. It sounds like a really exciting project for you and hope you get the approval required to get it off the ground. - Jonathan Taylor, Operations Manager, Northamptonshire County Cricket Club

We give our support for a community radio station. We as a community interest company work with many charitable organisations where many people give their time to help others. Giving airtime to help all of us who do good things is most welcome and very needed Good luck with your venture - Ian Flaxman, Sport4Fitness CIC

We are happy to support you and have shared this with all our membership. We will gladly participate in any features etc, if you are successful with the application. - Matt Kutas, Northampton Town Walking Football Club

Local support and exposure is vitally important to promote Northampton business. I have completed the survey and feel that radio exposure will bring more awareness of the benefits of childrens yoga to more families across our county and I would be very happy to support you in this way. - Lisa Greenough, Yoga Pebbles

I would be happy to help where I can. I have done a live interview with BBC Radio Northampton before and it was a great experience for me. I feel it could really get the word out there to a wider audience about the benefits of yoga for people of all ages, and how Karma Kids Yoga Therapy helps. - Heather Saint, Karma Kids Yoga Therapy

We are delighted to hear about the opportunity of a the new community radio station in Northampton. Not only would this offer a valuable tool to Bowls England, but it would be a great resource for our member clubs to use as part of their recruitment campaigns, not only to promote their results/fixtures, but by encouraging non-bowlers to consider taking a visit to their club and perhaps becoming members. We are proud to promote our sport as ‘a sport for all’. If it is of value, I would be happy to forward your email to the Official County Administrator for Bowls Northamptonshire who would be able to share with all Clubs within the county. - Matt Wordingham, Bowls England

Good luck with your application. - Stephen Hill, Hon Sec Kislingbury Bowls Club

At the moment I don’t think we’re going to be able to get back to anything resembling normality for some months yet, squash being just about the worst case scenario for effective transmission of Covid-19 ☹ However once we are, any opportunity I get to promote our sport and community on the radio I will take with both hands. - Mike Broadbent, Northants Squash

We would be happy to support the new Radio Station venture for Northampton. As a Community Sports Club, we are often looking for innovative ways to reach new audiences, to promote our club and the events we organise or attend, alongside a whole variety of community campaigns that align with our inclusion & equality responsibilities.  We regularly attend and support a wide array of local events through participation and also exhibition where possible. Having a supportive local singular resource which promoted those events to a wider audience as well as giving us increased awareness of those same events, would be a massive boon to us, as often we may only find out at late notice, or not at all until after the event.  Furthermore, we are fully invested in delving in to more than just the face or name of events, it's thoroughly rewarding to delve deeper in to the subject matter with prominently involved local persons. Being able to find out more about what is occurring locally directly from the persons involved rather than reading from a flyer is infinitely invaluable. You can really get behind the cause when you actually hear more of the story behind it.  We would certainly support a station of this sort and promote it to our members and a wider audience. Northampton Outlaws RFC thoroughly supports your Ofcom application and wishes you the best of luck in achieving your goals, and we look forward to hearing you over the airwaves in the near future! - Simon Chapman, Northampton Outlaws RFC

We are very happy to support and be supported by your new venture however we can. We organise self directed round trip walks from licenced premises in and around the county every other Sunday morning throughout the year. We also organise alternate Wednesday evening 10k walks through the summer.  I publish the events through various media channels and public notice boards throughout the county and can send you posters for the events a couple of weeks before the individual event. This is the same process I use with Heart, Smooth and BBC Northampton as well as the local papers. Please let me know if we can do anything else to help - Pete Rickwood, Waendel Walkers Club

This sounds like a great idea and I think that this could be of great benefit to us to drive interest for beginners courses and to promote events that we might be running - neither of these is an option right now with Covid-19 but hopefully later in the year! Please do keep me posted with your progress. - Susan Corless, Northampton Archery Club

We have football for children and adults of all abilities and from all backgrounds. Promoting our disability, cerebral palsy as well as the girls and ladies is something that I feel Revolution Radio could help us with. These groups are difficult for us to promote other than through social media and I feel an affordable radio promotion would help us as a non profit organisation to spread the word to a wider audience in our local area. - Simon Aston, Kettering FC

I must say we were quite excited to hear about your plans, and hope you are successful in your application.  We are very aware of the lack of coverage offered by existing radio stations when it comes to promoting our business locally.  We believe there are a lot of ladies out there in Northampton and surrounding areas who would love to play netball again but are intimidated by the thought of joining an existing club.  They also don’t want to invest in affiliating for a year, getting all the kit, etc, if they don’t enjoy it after a couple of session.  This is why our leagues are so successful, and your new station could be the way to get this message out to these ladies.  – Janice Daynes, Totally Netball Northampton

I think Revolution Radio for Northampton sounds like a fabulous idea. A community radio to support and connect the public with community groups, charities, sports teams, musicians and business groups is a wonderful idea and one that is much needed, especially in these uncertain and changing times when we are all having to change the way we do business and interact with society. I feel it could benefit my company by giving me the opportunity to promote health and wellbeing to a wider, local audience and perhaps give some hints and tips to help improve the wellbeing of the listeners. Thank you and good luck with the application for the licence. – Caroline Benyon, Seebe Wellbeing

I’m very pleased to support Revolution Radio’s application for a broadcasting license. As you will be a community based radio station I hope that your project will support and promote local groups that benefit the people of Northampton.  As the teacher of Northampton Ki Aikido club I act in a voluntary, unpaid capacity. Our national and international organisation (Ki Federation of Great Britain) is also a non-profit organisation.  Wishing you every success. - Ian Walters, Northampton Ki Aikido Club

I feel that a new community radio station in Northampton would be a great benefit to Northampton Sailing Club as it would help us to promote the range of activities available at the club. Sailing has a perception that it’s an elitist sport, but it’s available to a wide range of people of all ages – for example, we run kids’ sessions and taster sessions, as well as racing. In addition, Sailability is a fantastic charity based at the club, which enables people with disabilities to go sailing. We also offer stand-up paddleboarding, canoeing and windsurfing in a beautiful location – near Brixworth. just a few miles from Northampton town centre.  We have learnt during the Coronavirus crisis just how important it is to be outside and to experience the natural world. Watersports and activities are great for physical and mental wellbeing and we would welcome the opportunity to promote this to local people.  Wishing all the best with your application. – Clare Butterfield, Northampton Sailing Club

Local Business Community

Northamptonshire Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1917 and now represents around 1,000 local businesses employing over one third of the county’s workforce. We are the largest business support agency in the county and one of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) Accredited Chambers - the largest and most powerful network for business in the UK.  As a culturally diverse community it is important to have a local radio station which can bring everyone together and support local charities, voluntary groups and businesses.   We would like to offer our support for Revolution Radio's vision for a community radio license. Revolution Radio's founder, Chris Gregg is known to the Chamber from his previous work with MKFM in Milton Keynes and we are confident that he has the skills and experience to make Revolution Radio a valuable asset for the town and we wish him every success.  We feel there is a genuine need for a professionally run radio station which our members can use to reach a local audience and would urge Ofcom to grant an FM license based on this provision. – Louise Wall, Interim Chief Executive, Northamptonshire Chamber of Commerce

As you know we ran the most successful business networking group for 13 years The Business Club Northants and we now run The Business Club Bucks and the businessclubtoday. Further to our conversation I am writing to offer our support for Revolution Radio which will certainly be a popular addition to the county of Northamptonshire. Please visit https://businessclub.today/ to register your interest and then you will receive email invitations for future Zoom networking events where you can promote the radio station. Look forward to seeing you on Zoom until we can hold actual group networking again. - Mike Willis, The Business Club Northants

A local radio station for Northampton is definitely needed and as in Milton Keynes I'm sure it will bring the community closer together. Look forward to working with you and Radio Revolution. - Gav Sokhi, Skyline Taxis (Milton Keynes and Northampton)

As a business owner and Northamptonshire girl (born and bred) I’m always looking for ways to collaborate and champion our enterprising community. I have responded to the survey and please take this as my support/interest. - Suzy Sanders, Alchemy VA

We would love to support a new radio station. It's just what the community needs. - Pete Brown, Bedrock Tiles

A community radio for Northampton sounds like a terrific idea! I would be very happy to support you in this venture. I am sure that being able to broadcast various topics that would be of interest to the community would be an enormous benefit to my business as well as promoting the radio and securing more listeners - Samantha Bedford, Simplicity Financial Planning

Just a quick note to say that I am in full support of your new radio station, and would be happy to come along as a guest. I own a Northamptonshire based walking club and I am keen to get as many people outside, enjoying the fresh air and discovering new part of Northants that perhaps they never knew existed. Good luck in your new venture. - Julia Doherty, Adventure Geek

It sounds like a really interesting idea! I fully support a community based station that looks to promote the great and good of the area whilst also helping to benefit the community it is situated in. Being a local station, it could have an impact for us when advertising as we will be able to target our local audience whilst as a listener we will have more access to local information and initiatives we may wish to be involved with as a company. - Ashley Baldock, Phipps Henson McAllister Chartered Accountants

Good to hear about your community radio station and wish you good luck with the initiative. I'm happy to support your radio station and looking forward to tune in and listen to your programme. - Venu Bharadwaj, Clicks Creative Studio

Community radio is the backbone of communities and whilst much of our work is national, I can see a benefit to Full Metal Software in understanding how we can help the local community. - Ben Thomson, Operations Director, Full Metal Software, Northampton

Revolution Radio sounds like a great idea. Community-specific radio stations can help link up local charities, interesting people and push back against loneliness by creating a stronger sense of community. I've filled in the survey. = Aidan Ashby, Lucid Rhino Web Design

A new community radio station in Northampton sounds fantastic. We would be keen to hear more about advertising opportunities when the time comes, having a very specific audience location will help us to reach people in the Northampton area with our advertising. - Neil Ridding, NearWay Driver Training

I'm delighted to support Revolution Radio's application - Natalie Ellis, Rebox HR

Sounds like a great idea - I’m at capacity right now so will only be able to contribute on a limited basis, but good luck with it all! - Sam Smith, DeType Ltd

I feel strongly that a local radio station and community would benefit us by giving us the local explore we desire. I feel there is currently a powerful drive in local helping local by shopping local. It would be a great platform to call in and discuss what a small business could offer instead of the typical paid advertising online as this often gets swallowed and very little in the way of conversion (For a business like mine) as it is incurably difficult to target certain markets as we cover quite a quite a few, and we cross-over with competitors also.  I would also love to hear and learn more about other SME’s and startups in the area as it wold be great to connect with them. Plus, I love a bit of local news too - I am. a real Northampton homegrown. – Dan Barrett, NR Creative Marketing

Local Media

I believe a local radio station in Northamptonshire would benefit the community greatly. For NN Pulse magazine it would enable us to target a different audience in the marketing mix than is currently available. It would also give a rich source of local information that otherwise may have been missed. - Kerry Lewis-Stevenson, Magazine Editor, NN Pulse

Local Music

I’m a singer/songwriter from Northampton who has performed over 1000 gigs since starting in 2011. I’m heavily involved with the acoustic music scene and give many local artists assistance with promoting their music so I’m very aware of the importance of local radio in championing up and coming acts. Unfortunately, apart from the BBC there is very little support available from radio stations in Northampton so it would really make a difference if Revolution Radio is given a licence. Their proposed support for live music, local artists and venues would be invaluable, especially in these challenging times with many venues still closed.  I would like to give my full support to their application. - Hannah Faulkner, Singer/Songwriter

Revolution Radio is desperately needed by the local music scene in Northampton. Our band, The Barratts has recently completed a national headline tour and sold out The Roadmender but local radio stations have ignored us and we really need a radio station which supports bands, singer songwriters and unsigned artists by playing their music and talking about gigs. - James Faulkner, The Barratts

This is a really tough time for me as a musician.  Although I'm surviving thus far, the question is whether I can get through to next year and as things stand, that doesn't seem possible as there are so few opportunities for musicians like me, gig wise and busking returns have been much lower recently despite being out over 30 times in Northampton recently. I'd be delighted to lend my support to Revolution Radio – it’s a tough time for everyone, esecially in our business, so your timing might prove advantageous and be seen to be part of the solution. Good luck! - Andrew Stott, The Plucky Haggis

LEAVE US A MESSAGE OF SUPPORT