Am I the only person in this part of the world fed up with hearing about rows about trees in Wellingborough or closure plans for a factory in Corby?

It seems that the BBC isn't content with just slashing its local radio coverage, it's also on a mission to destroy any regional identity its television viewers might feel.

To be honest Look East should be renamed Look East Midlands and the Home Counties it is so stuffed full of news from outside what even the government thinks is the East of England these days.

Now we all have our own view on what constitues East Anglia. For me it's Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire.The Basildons and Peterboroughs of this world might be a bit fringy, but I'll accept them.

The government classes the "East of England" as those four counties plus Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. I can't really feel Luton or Watford are part of this region - but I'll grudgingly accept that.

But Milton Keynes and the area around that is in the South East region and Northamptonshire is in the East Midlands - there is no reason why Look East should be covering them.

The BBC's reasoning is that the signal from the Sandy Heath transmitter that covers Cambridgeshire also reaches those areas.

By that logic they should not be covering anything that happens in Kings Lynn or much of north Norfolk (including Sandringham) because they are covered by the Belmont transmitter in Lincolnshire which carries regional programmes from Yorkshire!

Northamptonshire is largely covered by the Dallington Park relay station in Northampton itself.

The answer to the Northamptonshire problem is simple - switch Dallington Park's signal from Sandy Heath to the main transmitter at Waltham in Leicestershire then that county could get regional news from the region it's in, not another part of the country.

And before they say that's too complex. In 1974 they moved Belmont from Anglia to the Yorkshire region. If that was possible 49 years ago surely it's not beyond the wit of electronic engineers today to repeat the trick!

At a time when many viewers get their TV from Freesat, other satellite stations, or through the iPlayer this scatter-gun approach seems outdated.

Look East currently has a real problem of the BBC's own making. Its output has been watered down so much that it really can no longer compete with its Anglia News rivals.

ITV Anglia still has an east-west split on its local news and I suspect BBC bosses are rather nervous about the number of their viewers who might be realising that - certainly my own TV news preferences are starting to change.

We all know that the BBC is struggling financially. 

East Anglian Daily Times: BBC staff across the country went on strike last month to protest at the cuts to local broadcasting.BBC staff across the country went on strike last month to protest at the cuts to local broadcasting. (Image: Charlotte Bond)

We've seen the butchery of its local radio network, which is starting in East Anglia where county-based stations are being cut to just 40 hours a week.

Now regional television news is being replaced by multi-regional bulletins.

In radio we are starting to see community stations trying to fill the void that's being created but they're not able to give the broad range or frankly, the professionalism you find with BBC radio.

In television while the BBC is retreating from regional broadcasting the commercial broadcasters are sticking with it.

At heart I still love the BBC. I can't imagine it not being there. 

But it really does need to think more about its audience - especially if it wants to justify the continuing licence fee.

In my view the licence fee is the worst possible way to finance the BBC . . . apart from all the alternatives!

However keeping the corporation in its current form is going to be increasingly difficult to support if it destroys its relationship with its grass roots users.