JOURNALISTS at BBC Radio Cumbria will be taking part in another 24 hour strike on July 20 to 21 in protest at the proposed changes to local services.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said that the BBC is planning to switch some of its budget from radio to online to 'reflect changing audience habits'. This means that local programming will run between 6am and 2pm only on weekdays and weekends, sports shows excepting, they said.

Belinda Artingstoll, the NUJ rep at BBC Radio Cumbria said: "We have said from the beginning that we don’t have any issue with doing more online content but this could have been done withing existing budgets.

"Instead the BBC refuses to listen to us when we say that sharing programmes with other stations is not 'local' radio any more and we are all passionate about being a local service.

"It also means that some much-loved voices will disappear from the airwaves too.

"In addition, the way they are planning to redeploy the remaining staff means that we will struggle to gather content in such a large county, with staff having to drive even longer distances, or not being sent to certain places at all, or with colleagues from Salford being expected to cover parts of south Cumbria at times which is clearly ridiculous.

"They are also trying to impose a one size fits all staffing template across local radio which again disadvantages a place like Cumbria and yet we keep hearing that the template is being tweaked in some other stations so why can’t they do the same for Cumbria?

"All this means that our audiences will not be getting the service they deserve on air or online.

"Staff here are very, very angry and we will be making this very clear when Jason Horton, who runs BBC Local, visits us next month.”

This is the third strike in this dispute – there was a 24 hour strike in mid March and a 48 hour strike in early June – in addition journalists have been working to rule i.e working their core hours, taking their full break entitlement and refusing to agree to last minute rota changes.

A BBC spokesperson previously said in relation to the strikes: "We will continue to engage with the union as we have done over the last few months in an effort to minimise the impact on our staff and our audiences.

"We have a plan to modernise local services across England - including more news journalists and a stronger local online service - which will see no overall reduction in staffing levels or local funding.

"Our goal is a local service across TV, radio and online that delivers even greater value to communities."