Radio LaB student managers Joe Burcham, Joe Flemons, Luke Gregory, Jacob Roch and Jack Stowell were all in Cardiff at the awards ceremony to pick up the award. The evening also saw the radio station highly commended in the Best Community Outreach award.

Radio LaB Coordinator Terry Lee was delighted to hear about the success: “I’m so pleased for all our students that we’ve won this award and that we’ve been recognised as an improving station. Radio LaB is the culmination of hard work by many devoted individuals.

“As long as we continue to work hard at making a great noise, our station and our volunteers can go from strength to strength.”

The past year has seen Radio Lab make substantial changes in the way it works. It has a more structured daytime programming and has invested in outside broadcast equipment which has seen the station cover events such as the Students’ Union elections and the annual sports Varsity event.

Other improvements have included an improved online steaming and the setting up of a ‘listen again’ section of its website. All this was topped off with a rebranding exercise which saw University students choose a new logo.

Radio LaB is run by student volunteers providing great experience and stepping stone to those considering a career in radio. Current Radio LaB Student Manager Joe Flemons has a network show on Capital FM while previous Radio LaB presenter Sam Darlaston is now a presenter on Kiss FM.

Xtra Factor host and Bedfordshire graduate Melvin Odoom also started his radio career as a student at the University.

He said: “My lecturers were very big on getting me involved in things outside of the degree, like student radio.

“Coming to Luton really gave me that radio experience so when I worked for the BBC Radio 1Xtra as a broadcast assistant, I wasn’t scared in that environment; I was completely comfortable.”