A COMMUNITY radio station will be launched for Colwyn Bay later this month.

To be known as Bayside Radio, it will initially have an on line presence.

Jeff Pearson, Colwyn Bay’s outgoing Mayor, will be its director of communities and company chairman. He has a professional background in radio.

Jeff said: “We can’t wait to get going. We have been building the station since the start of the year and talking to partners such as Coleg Llandrillo and others, about how we can best work together for the good of the community. It’s going to be very exciting although there’s still much work to do.”

The not-for-profit company was founded by ex-BBC executive and former local broadcaster Simon Wynne who worked at Radio 1 and BBC Three before taking early retirement a few years ago.

Simon said: “It all began as a conversation I had with a number of fellow broadcasters and media organisations who were dismayed that an area the size of Colwyn Bay didn’t have its very own radio service.

“I felt we had a brilliant opportunity to reflect the changing fortunes of the town and provide a positive voice to the local community.”

He added: “While we will start broadcasting on line, we have an eye on eventually developing the service on digital radio.

“We have all the technology built and ready to go, so we’re naturally quite excited to start broadcasting albeit online in the early stages of our development.

“I’m very proud of the work that’s been done on the website which looks amazing. We can’t wait to get this published online and have a number of content providers and partners who are ready to help us deliver on-air, podcast and video once we go live.

Jeff and Simon are joined by commercial director Ron Roberts, who brings experience in marketing and promotions and has given the company access to many resources needed to establish the company.

Ron said: “If we can make people smile, be a friend and reflect how lucky we are to serve such a beautiful part of the world then I’ll think we’ll be well on the way to doing our job.”

The station will broadcast live online with presenters from Thursday May 31. There will also be periodic FM broadcasts planned in preparation for future FM and Digital Radio licence applications.