YORKSHIRE Radio Enterprises Ltd (YRE) is bidding for the new West and South Yorkshire FM licence, which will cover 2.5 million adults in the region including parts of North Yorkshire.

One of the two biggest licences being made available in England,YRE will broadcast as Nova 106. The bid means a return to the region for Martyn Rose, 52, a year after he left Minster Sound Radio group in York, which was sold to GWR and Radio Investment in February last year.

Mr Rose co-founded Minster in 1992 and was chairman at the time of the sale.

If Nova 106 is successful, it would start broadcasting in early 2002, a decade after Mr Rose's first involvement with commercial radio in North Yorkshire.

The closing date for bids to the Radio Authority was last week, and now Mr Rose and his team must wait until June at the earliest to find out if they have been successful.

Other bidders include: SMG Group (owners of Virgin Radio), Jazz FM, Century Radio, Guardian Media Group (as Variety FM), Forever Broadcasting and over-50s leisure group Saga.

YRE has some influential backers, including Newsquest, publishers of The Northern Echo. If the bid is successful, it will employ about 35 staff initially, plus freelancers.

Mr Rose, a former barrister, is an instinctive entrepreneur with the chairmanship of eight companies, with interests from soft drinks to fine art and manufacturing, to his credit.

Relishing the prospect of a return to the region, he said: "It will be an interesting challenge to be back on the patch, but it is one that I am looking forward to, if we prove successful.

"All of us involved in the bid have a long history in radio and we are certainly not in it to make a quick killing."

But what will the new station offer, if it proves successful?

Mr Rose said: "Our interests will be the interests of our listeners. We've done our market research and come up with a unique programming format.

"We don't want to show our hand too soon by giving away our formats. Our target audience is people aged between 30 and 50, so that obviously covers a wide variety of musical tastes.

"Needless to say, with support from Newsquest, our news coverage will be second to none."