A NEW community radio station is to hit the airwaves this weekend.

Radio Peterborough will start broadcasting on 106.2FM at 10am on Saturday (June 26) after it got a temporary licence from regulators Ofcom.

Broadcasting from studios behind the Town Hall, it will boast a series of local celebrity presenters throughout the day and cover live events such as this weekend’s Peterborough Festival.

And the station looks set to rival competitors such as Heart and Connect FM as station manager Wayne Fitzgerald tries to make it “more permanent fixture in the city”.

The Angels nightclub owner and Conservative councillor added: “We have been inundated with people wanting to help out, run programmes and work behind the scenes.”

Mr Fitzgerald is no stranger to a career on the wireless.

He was a presenter and producer on the old Hereward FM station and set up Lite FM in the 1990s before it was sold on to another company.

And he has recruited a series of personalities who made their names on his former stations, including presenters Tom Hooper and Chris Holland as well as newsreader Simon Potter.

Radio Peterborough will broadcast shows with local presenters throughout the day, in contrast to Heart which mainly airs shows across its network of UK stations.

Mr Fitzgerald, who will run the station with broadcaster Peter Tibbs, said there would be a “wide variety of specialist programmes as well as the usual mainstream music, local news and chat.”