NEWS: National Lottery Award

Funding from the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund, has helped us to keep Prince Bishops Hospital Radio on the air during Covid-19.

Prior to the pandemic, our studios were used 7 days a week by our team of volunteers. With the help of CDDFT Charity and Durham Freemasons we managed to equip some of our volunteers with facilities to broadcast from home. Unfortunately not everyone could get involved. We have a diverse team of dedicated volunteers and we needed a way to give our disabled, vulnerable or elderly members the ability to stay connected and involved in our service.

With funding from The National Lottery Community Fund and HM Government we are now able to overcome the challenges of new social distancing rules with the use of technology.

The grant of £9,516 will help us make our studio facility within Bishop Auckland Hospital Covid Secure. By replacing our studio equipment with a digital mixer, more volunteers will be able to broadcast remotely from their homes, or from a socially distanced location using non specialist technology such as ipads. Volunteers who can’t broadcast from home can work safely in the upgraded studio facility. When ward visiting resumes, the equipment will allow live broadcasts from anywhere in the hospital, without any specialist equipment.

Work on the upgraded facility will be begin in early August and we’re aiming to re-open the studios in September 2020.

Prince Bishops Hospital Radio would like to offer our sincere thanks to the Government for making this possible.

• Twitter: @TNLComFund and @DCMS
• Facebook:@TNLCommunityFund and @dcmsgovuk
• Hashtag: #CommunitiesCan