Readers denouncing the impending departure from BBC Southern Counties Radio of John Radford, Bill Buckley, Dominic Busby and Ed Douglas have inundated the Letters pages.

I will be sorry to see John Radford, an erudite and witty man with a beautiful speaking voice, go (although I won't miss the juvenile utterances of Ed Douglas and can also do without Dominic Busby).

The fact the station has been losing listeners doesn't surprise me. The problem began when Broadcasting House, London, decided not to establish a separate station to serve Eastbourne and Hastings but to extend the output of Radio Brighton to the rest of Sussex and to change its name to Radio Sussex, thereby moving away from the idea of local radio.

I was on the local radio council at the time and it had a number of misgivings about the changes.

The BBC compounded its error by combining Radio Sussex with the ailing Radio Surrey and moving to an all-speech format. The station's administration was also moved from Brighton to Guildford.

It was rescued from this slough of despond by the former managing editor, Mike Hapgood, and with the introduction of the three-way split of the Breakfast show between 6 and 9am, thereby restoring a modicum of truly local broadcasting.

The loss of listeners may also be due to the tired format which has remained virtually unchanged since the mid-Seventies. This involves a presenter "driving" a three or four-hour programme into which are dropped features and packages.

From the listener's point of view, this means you never know, with any precision, when to listen to an item in which one is interested.

Several writers to The Argus have criticised the present managing editor, Neil Pringle, for the decision to end the above presenters' contracts.

But this criticism is premature as we don't yet know the new format, whether there will be more local programming or who the new presenters will be.

BBC Southern Counties Radio needs to get closer to the people to recover its listeners. I hope it will decide to work jointly with the new community radio station, Radio Reverb, which has just been granted a licence.

It is certainly heartening to learn the station's administration is moving back to Brighton.

-Peter Bailey, Brighton