BBC priorities

SIR – The BBC has suspended its plan to scrap the BBC Singers, following offers of “alternative funding” (telegraph.co.uk, March 24). I would much rather my licence fee was used to pay for this choir, and alternative funding found for Gary Lineker.

Alice Barber

Edgware, Middlesex

SIR – As BBC radio continues in its quest for self-destruction by removing Rev Richard Coles from Saturday Live on Radio 4 (report, March 24), I would like to thank him for his 12 years of excellent service.

In future I will be tuning in to Classic FM on Saturday mornings.

Alan Bristow

Little Neston, Cheshire

SIR – Charlotte Runcie (Arts, March 24) reflects on the sadness of Rev Richard Coles’s departure from Saturday Live.

It’s a sadness shared by us all. He is a warm, intelligent and witty broadcaster. We had hoped to welcome him to Cardiff when the programme makes the move in April. Understandably, with his busy schedule and competing demands, it was not something he felt he could do.

However, Ms Runcie goes on to question the rationale for the BBC moving programmes out of London. I should declare that I’m a Scot living in Wales, and have never lived or worked in London. From that perspective, shouldn’t the question be: why not? The BBC has gone to great lengths to build talented teams in different parts of the country, providing an economic benefit to the new locations and enabling staff to deliver world-class output from the place they call home.

I hope we will hear Rev Coles on Radio 4 in the future, wherever he broadcasts from, but there is a clear benefit of a BBC that is made by and for everyone across the UK.

Colin Paterson

Head of BBC Audio Wales and the West of England