Andrew Mitchell MP has met with Meg Lewis, Assistant Regional Manager for Digital UK’s Anglia and Central region. Mr Mitchell arranged the meeting to discuss the process of turning off analogue terrestrial TV signals from the Sutton Coldfield transmitter and how this will affect local residents. Across the UK, analogue is being replaced by digital terrestrial TV coverage. The completion of the switchover is scheduled for 2012. The Sutton Coldfield mast was the first to broadcast outside London and the Home Counties and has towered over the local area since its construction in 1949. It provides TV signal to much of the West Midlands. There are only three other transmitters in the central region: Waltham, Fenton and Oxford. Sutton’s MP was particularly keen to hear how the changes will affect his constituents, particularly the elderly and vulnerable. He sought assurances that Digital UK has done its upmost to provide enough information to local residents in advance of the switchover. On Wednesday 7 September the signal from BBC Two was turned off from the Sutton Coldfield transmitting station. On 21 September the process will be completed when the remaining analogue channels will be switched off. Andrew Mitchell MP said, “I am reassured that Digital UK have been working hard to inform local residents of the switchover and what they need to do to prepare for it.”