Our History

Newport City Radio first began life as Urban Circle Radio, based in Pill in 2007. The very next year, Urban Circle received a 3-year funding grant from the Big Lottery and moved to Upper Dock Street. It was at this point that Ian Lamsdale became involved and morphed Urban Circle Radio into Newport City Radio to celebrate and live up to our status a Wales’s newest City.

During the next three years Newport City Radio appeared on FM on 87.9FM notably in July 2008, December 2009, and December 2010. In between we continued to stream online.

In 2011 as the funding grant ended the decision was made to take Newport City Radio in a different direction. We were supporting and empowering people of all ages, all abilities with training and development in radio broadcasting. In short, we were no longer a youth-based project. It was agreed with Urban Circle that we would become a Community Interest Company (CIC) in our own right. We will always be grateful to the team at Urban Circle for their love and support.

With a move to St David’s House on Commercial Street/Hill Street. Ian Lamsdale became Managing Director of the CIC with support from Finance Director, David Philips and Programme Director, Philip Davies. We ramped up social media and training. Through a grant from a European funding project and started working with Charter housing and then Newport City Homes to increase volunteer numbers. It was through this programme we met Adam Edwards who asked if he could redesign the website. This then brought a whole new aspect. Blogging. Writing would become an equal partner to radio.

We were dependent entirely on many volunteers from a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities, serving Newport online with a mix of programming, who have their various radio shows and blogs. At one point had 50 active volunteers at any given time.