|TOP|A new gospel radio station will hit airwaves in West Yorkshire soon with the launch of Branch FM.

Having previously thought that there is an ‘unmet market for Christian broadcasting,’ Christian group Branch FM has recently been awarded a 5-year local FM licence for Dewsbury from the government's Office of Communications, the UK radio regulator.

Stations awarded with the licence include Hope FM in Bournemouth, Branch FM in Dewsbury, Ipswich Community Radio in Suffolk, Siren FM in Lincoln, Diverse FM in Luton, Castledown Radio and Salisbury Plain Army Radio in the Salisbury Plain area, Radio Verulam in St Albans and Calon FM in Wrexham, North East Wales.

The existing Branch FM schedule includes a country gospel programme on Mondays, run by the church pastor, Bob Ward, who spent his childhood in Canada; black gospel music on Wednesdays; "Christian dance" on Fridays; and a rock programme on Saturdays.

|AD|Policeman Steve Hodgson, a chief superintendent based at Keighley, has been managing the station for 10 years – on-line and sometimes on-air, with temporary licences – while pursuing the full-time licence.

He said yesterday: "We have support from other Christian churches but our long-term aim is to find the sponsorship to make it an independent station. It is an exciting opportunity which we have prayed for for a long long time."

Within nine months, Branch FM expects to be on air 24 hours a day from the studio above its church in the old Temperance Hall on Halifax Road, Dewsbury.

The submission to Ofcom claimed that nearly 31,000 people in Dewsbury – 57 per cent of the population – called themselves Christian in the last census, compared with just over 12,000 who identified themselves as Muslims (23 per cent) and about 10,000 who said they had no religion or ignored the question.

Premier Christian station is currently on-air in the London area and gets national distribution through cable and satellite, while United Christian Broadcasting of Stoke on Trent runs digital radio and TV channels but nothing on air.