BBC Trust considers proposals to leave Birmingham

It is thought the recommendation is to relocate productions such as Coast, Doctors and The Hairy Bikers, as well as big name radio programmes such as consumer affairs show You and Yours, to some of the corporation’s bigger hubs such as Cardiff, Bristol and Glasgow.

Local news and radio services are likely to remain in the city, although it is unclear whether they will remain in the Mailbox, the BBC’s Birmingham premises.

The move will affect the 180 BBC staff and freelancers who currently work on network productions in the city, however it is not known how many redundancies will occur as a result.

A BBC spokeswoman said: “We are not going to get drawn into a running commentary - no decisions have been taken and therefore these claims remain speculation. Any decisions coming out of the process would be subject to approval by the BBC Trust.”

A full announcement is expected on 6 October.  

The move has been expected for some time, with Birmingham under the spotlight after its factual department suffered nearly 30 redundancies following the demise of daytime series To Buy or Not to Buy earlier this year.

The regional hub is also under pressure because of the corporation’s commitment to reduce its property space by 30% as part of Delivering Quality First.

The lease for the Mailbox costs the BBC more than £2m a year.

Although the BBC’s chief operating officer Caroline Thomson said on announcing the property initiative that the broadcaster would not quit any cities or regions entirely she did not rule out moving network programmes from an area.

“There has been a debate around Bristol and Birmingham, but we would never lose a complete presence there because we have a lot of important content, like local regional news, which would suffer,” she said at the time.