The Bay Radio invited to Downing Street

The Bay Radio attended a special ‘Flood Heroes Reception’ at 10 Downing Street on Monday 21 March.

The Prime Minister held the event to meet the individuals and organisations that rallied round to help local people during December’s floods and power cuts in Lancashire and Cumbria.  Mr Cameron wanted to thank the radio station and the emergency services and hear more about what happened.

The Bay’s Managing Director, Bill Johnston, who attended the event said: “It was a great experience and I was very proud to be invited to represent the whole Bay Radio team who worked so hard in incredibly challenging conditions.  We’ve had incredible levels of support from listeners and the community as a whole – all telling us how vital their local commercial radio station was to them when a community was in crisis during the floods and power cuts.”

The invitation follows on from other recognition received by The Bay, including a special commendation from Lancashire Police in December.  During Storm Desmond, and the subsequent power cuts, station presenters broadcast from a make shift studio in an upstairs office initially with nothing more than a microphone and a lap top pieced together by their station engineer.  With an all hands on deck approach, sales staff manned the phone lines and office staff became journalists.  The ‘Bay Action Desk’ rolling news format also helped the station achieve nearly six million impressions on social media.