Charity audit

Cottingley-based chartered accountants Watson Buckle have been appointed as auditors for Cancer Support Bradford & Airedale, which is celebrating its silver jubilee and supports more than 3,500 people a year. Watson Buckle provide a yearly audit of the charity’s accounts and regular support and advice. Susan Sedgwick, managing partner, said: “We are keen to support local charities and organisations which is why we are delighted to have taken over the auditing of Cancer Support Bradford & Airedale.”

Phone line boost

Premium-rate telephone lines earned the Department for Transport £2.5 million over the past two years, new figures have revealed.

Strong market

Car dealership Pendragon said its Stratstone and Evans Halshaw businesses were benefiting from a strong new vehicle market, with UK like-for-like retail sales for the first quarter of the year up by 16.7 per cent. Used vehicle volumes increased by 3.2 per cent, while the number of visitors to its websites grew by 20.6 per cent during the quarter compared to the prior year.
The company’s dealerships include a Stratstone Honda outlet on Canal Road, Bradford.

Hotspot growth

BT Wi-Fi has announced that it has reached more than 292,000 hotspots in Yorkshire and the Humber, including more than 19,500 in Bradford and nearly 13,000 in Calderdale. Across the UK and Ireland the company has added more than 20,000 new hotspots each week over the past year, taking the total to five million. Latest figures show users’ online Wi-fi time is increasing, with minutes more than tripling in 2012/13. Tom Keeney, BT regional director for Yorkshire, said: “People are now so confident and comfortable with their gadgets, we’ve had to meet the demand with more hotspots in a wider choice of places – on the high street and in thousands of neighbourhoods across the region.”

Deliveries hit

Sliding magazine sales and title closures show no sign of improving this year, print distributor and baggage handler John Menzies has warned. The group, which delivers about five million newspapers and 2.1 million magazines a day, said weeklies have been hit particularly hard.