Published at 21:54, Wednesday, 28 May 2008

THE fight to save ITV Border’s Lookaround news programme will continue after campaigners were encouraged by a meeting with regulator Ofcom.

Campaigners with some of the thousands of petitions to save ITV’s Lookaround

A delegation led by presenters Tim Backshall and Fiona Armstrong visited Ofcom to hand in 7,000 petition cards that had been collected at events and from the Save Lookaround website and to give a presentation about why Lookaround should be saved.

They were accompanied by MPs, including Dumfriesshire MP David Mundell, to meet Kate Stross, director of content at Ofcom, and her team.

Mr Mundell made it clear that there was no motivation north of the border to see the merger of southern Scotland with STV. He condemned ITV’s proposed separate six minutes of news, describing it as unacceptable on the grounds that there was a very strong connectivity between the communities on both sides of the border.

What happened in southern Scotland was of relevance to Cumbria and vice versa.

He disagreed with the claim from ITV that a story about post office closures in South Shields had equal resonance across the region and argued instead that a programme from north-east England had no context for his constituents.

He said: “We are being asked to give up something and offered nothing better in return. People feel something is being taken away from them.”

Border was a ‘different’ region from other ITV regions and needed something different provided to it from what might be acceptable to other regions.

In a statement from South of Scotland MSP Michael Russell, also a Scottish government minister, he said: “I’m strongly in support of the continuation of Border television news and its associated programmes in the form it is currently.

“Of course, I have aspirations politically for Scotland but Border does a good job as it is and if we are to move to any changes they shouldn’t be the changes that are proposed.

“Those changes destroy the principle of localism and they will make a worse service for the people I represent. They are being driven by the wrong motives in the wrong direction and I would ask Ofcom to think again.”

Ofcom already had 2,000 Save Lookaround cards sent to them independently, along with 60 letters, and Kate Stross admitted this was impressive considering the public consultation had not yet started.

The campaigners felt the response from viewers had impressed Ofcom and they were getting across the message on why Lookaround was important, why it was an exceptional case and the campaign would continue to keep hammering away at that message.

A spokesman said: “The message is we carry on. If you’ve not written to Ofcom personally yet, please do. Those are the letters that carry the most weight and the 60 to have already reached Ofcom have given them pause for thought.”

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