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Rother FM - Ofcom Licensing

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Section 105 (B) and (C): Catering for tastes and interests/broadening choice<br />

The start of the 21 st century has brought big changes, big improvements and big challenges.<br />

£1.8 billion of Objective One funding was announced for South Yorkshire in 2000, £700<br />

million of it from the European Union. The money has been, and continues to be, spent on<br />

projects to attract high-tech industry, improve transport links, develop industrial sites, help<br />

existing businesses grow and generally to help the most disadvantaged communities get jobs<br />

and training.<br />

<strong>Rother</strong>ham’s excellent location at the junction of the M1 and M18, its strong and proud<br />

manufacturing heritage and its low cost of living are all advantages for the area’s future.<br />

Another advantage is the pro-active and forward-thinking <strong>Rother</strong>ham Metropolitan Borough<br />

Council. The town now has a superb transport interchange and popular new retail and<br />

business developments such as Parkgate. Templeborough is a good snapshot of how<br />

<strong>Rother</strong>ham is changing: the old steelworks is now the popular Magna science centre. The<br />

Templeborough area is full of new units, many of them home to businesses that retain some<br />

link with <strong>Rother</strong>ham’s steel heritage such as machining and engineering. Corus still operates<br />

a steelworks in <strong>Rother</strong>ham, and one colliery remains, at Maltby. 22% of the borough’s<br />

workforce is employed in manufacturing, compared to 16% in the country as a whole,<br />

although the sector has declined since 1986. Agriculture, mining and utilities have all seen<br />

big declines but transport, communications and the service sectors are growing fast – call<br />

centres in particular.<br />

Employment is now in line with the national average, and the population is almost at 1981<br />

levels again. But <strong>Rother</strong>ham still has its challenges, some of them shared with other South<br />

Yorkshire communities like Barnsley and Doncaster, others specific to <strong>Rother</strong>ham. As in<br />

Barnsley and Doncaster, high numbers of people suffer from limiting long-term illnesses as a<br />

result of the industrial heritage. All three towns have seen a big fall in the number of younger<br />

people, and all have a high rate of people with low, or no, educational qualifications.<br />

<strong>Rother</strong>ham’s specific challenges relate largely to its geographical position, so close to<br />

Sheffield, and to the town’s image problems. 40% of <strong>Rother</strong>ham’s working population leave<br />

the borough to work; 22% going to Sheffield. Far fewer people from outside the borough<br />

actually come in to <strong>Rother</strong>ham to work. Being much more closely tied to Sheffield than either<br />

Doncaster or Barnsley is, there are fears that <strong>Rother</strong>ham itself will benefit less from the<br />

Objective One funding than the other towns, if it’s treated merely as an adjunct of Sheffield.<br />

Retail and leisure businesses in the area fight against “leakage” – local people choosing to<br />

travel out of <strong>Rother</strong>ham, perhaps to Sheffield’s Meadowhall shopping centre or to Doncaster<br />

or Barnsley. Meanwhile, businesses talk about the difficulty of recruiting the right staff,<br />

despite low housing costs and good road links, because of negative perceptions of<br />

<strong>Rother</strong>ham. The local authority’s concept of <strong>Rother</strong>ham Proud is designed to face these<br />

challenges head-on, by defining what’s great about <strong>Rother</strong>ham and ensuring it has an identity<br />

beyond Sheffield’s little brother.<br />

<strong>Rother</strong> <strong>FM</strong> looks forward to being part of this process.<br />

22

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