Nigel homes in on community listeners with new Fylde radio station

A radio presenter has gone back to his roots to help, in his words, ‘plug the gap’ left by the loss of the Radio Wave brand from Fylde airwaves.
Nigel Clarkson his home studio in St AnnesNigel Clarkson his home studio in St Annes
Nigel Clarkson his home studio in St Annes

Nigel Clarkson has set up the new Sands Radio, initially from his home in St Annes and serving the Fylde Coast and the greater North West via the internet.

The presentation team includes the likes of Steve Bradshaw, formerly of Radio Wave, the former Blackpool-based station which was officially rebranded as Greatest Hits Radio several weeks ago.

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Nigel, who was born and bred in St Annes, has more than 30 years’ radio experience with stations such as Rock FM and The Bay as well as Wave itself.

He says he was concerned that the need for a local informative music-based service in the community was no longer being fulfilled and adds: “I wanted to offer a professional local radio station for the people on the Fylde, presented by people who love this part of the country.”

Sands Radio offers contemporary music from the 80s right up to the very latest hits, local information, traffic and travel details, and local sport including football news from Blackpool, Fleetwood Town and AFC Fylde.

“Sands Radio has taken off much quicker than we could have ever imagined,” said Nigel.

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“The hand-picked team are all enthusiastic injecting both fun and entertainment into their shows.

“It really is one big happy team working together and promoting local businesses on the Fylde and the North West of England.

“We are based at St Annes with a studio from our home for the initial start-up with plans to move to a larger office in the New Year once the current Coronavirus situation has settled.

“I bought a full commercial radio studio desk from a radio station that had closed down from an engineer in Doncaster last year. My goal was to start up my very own commercial radio station on the Fylde coast.

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“All the presenters can work from home-based studios as we have the latest playout system Playoutone which has a remote working system as well as myself working live at the studio.

“It’s perfect for safe working with the latest Covid restrictions and presenters able to work from home.

“I know many professional radio presenters from working at Red Rose Radio, The Bay, Radio Wave, Sandgrounder Radio, Lakeland Radio, and Kit Kat Radio over the last 30 years.

“Finding the right people with all my connections has been relatively easy.

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“We have a great presentation team with a healthy mix of experienced professionals to relatively new people with bags of potential, which I feel gives us a bright professional and commercial sounding radio station.

“In the New Year, I intend to set up a radio presenter training school once we can put Covid behind us and all working practices are hopefully back to normal.”

The station is available at www.sandsradio.co.uk

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