The BBC is to receive an angry letter from Kirkby Lonsdale Town Council that says licence payers in the area are being treated as second class citizens'.

The town, alongside other parts of the Lune Valley, will be without access to terrestrial television channels when the change over from analogue to digital takes place in 2008.

Members of the council are concerned the only way residents in the town will be able to watch television will be to have a satellite dish installed and to subscribe to Sky - as the area is not currently served by a digital receiver.

Town council chairman Coun Alan Day said he was totally and utterly dissatisfied with the situation.

"We will be writing to the BBC as well as our MP, Tim Collins, about this matter, because the residents of Kirkby Lonsdale are paying for a service they are not getting now, so it will be worse come 2008."

In other parts of the region affected by the switch, residents have three years to ensure they are prepared for the new signal. This can be done by installing a satellite dish, subscribing to cable or broadband or purchasing a digital set top box, for a one-off fee.

The move has already prompted anger from residents as well as Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Mr Collins, who believes the Border TV region should not be among the first to transfer.

Fellow Kirkby Lonsdale town councillor Stephen Pepperrell said town residents should not have to pay a full licence fee for a service some may not be able to receive.

"The letter to the BBC will ask for a rebate on the licence fee from 2008 when we will have to subscribe to satellite, paying a monthly fee, to watch what most other people in the country will have.

"Where is the sense in switching this region over first, when London and the South East, which has the technology to do it, will not switch until 2011? We are second class citizens."

But the BBC denied residents would be stranded without services.

This week a spokesman told the Gazette that while there was not currently enough frequency space for a digital service in Kirkby Lonsdale, the shut down of the analogue signal would provide the necessary room.

"People need to make sure they have the equipment to receive digital, but the switch over would be done by turning off one analogue channel to allow the freeview channels to run three to six months beforehand.

"There will be no gap in service. The television licence does not guarantee a number of channels or reception so a rebate would not apply."