BLUE Peter legend Biddy Baxter has slammed the BBC's decision to move children's programmes from London to Salford.

The editor of the show from 1962-1988 believes past guests like David Beckham and Ewan McGregor would never have gone to Manchester to appear on the show.

She said: "It would be crazy to force children's programmes to move to Manchester. It may be called Blue Peter, but it won't be the same programme if it goes away from London."

Asked why Blue Peter would not be the same if not made in London she cited the example of an edition of the programme which featured a number of items originating in London, including children from the Mary Poppins show in the West End.

Beckham

She said: "They would never have come to Manchester because they couldn't have got back in time to do the show. There was David Beckham, who had just flown in briefly from Madrid who said the reason he took up football was watching a film that Blue Peter made on the Jack Charlton Football School. He would not have gone to Manchester."

She said the show also interviewed the actor Ewan McGregor who talked about how he got a Blue Peter badge when he sent in a recipe for a bird food cake as a child. He then dashed off to London's Leicester Square for a film premiere but he would not have been able to get there from Manchester.

Despite Biddy's views Blue Peter is already planning to create a new garden on a Salford rooftop, when the show moves north. Landscapers are creating a new garden but replicating the garden pond, vegetable patch, and viewing platform in the original, which was created by Percy Thrower and opened in 1974.