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The BBC is using the Midlands as a cash cow, claim city leaders, after new data showed it spends a fraction here of what it spends in other regions.

Midland licence fee payers contribute £942 million to the BBC, yet the corporation invested just £80 million across the region last year – less than it spends in London in 12 days – according to the Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands (CRBM).

With the BBC’s charter up for renewal next year, the Birmingham Post and sister newspaper the Mail – backed by industry leaders and MPs of the three main parties – has made a series of demands including calling for at least 50 per cent of funds raised through the licence fee in this region to be spent here.

The BBC has pledged to invest more outside London, but, while spending has risen in all other regions in the past two years, it has actually fallen by more in the Midlands than in the capital.

For every family paying a licence fee in this region, the BBC spends just £12 while it invests £80 in the North, £122 in Wales and £757 in London.

Birmingham MP Steve McCabe said the broadcaster had run out of excuses and could no longer continue to ignore the Midlands, which accounts for more than a quarter of licence fee-payers.

Mr McCabe (Lab Selly Oak) said: “If they want to have a London broadcasting corporation then that is fine but they have to pay for it themselves.

“If we are going to have a British Broadcasting Corporation, then Birmingham and the Midlands needs to have a fair share.”

He added: “I am very supportive of the idea that in the charter negotiations we need to push for a much fairer return.

“It is quite clear that Birmingham is subsidising people in London, Cardiff and Manchester.”

There are currently no prime-time BBC shows created in the Midlands. Daytime show Doctors and historic radio soap opera The Archers are the feathers in the region’s cap, but business and community leaders say that is not enough.

The CRBM data, which is based on the BBC’s annual report to April 2014, shows spending in the region has fallen from £100 million two years before.

Its expenditure in the Midlands – which includes the West and East Midlands and the East – is less than the £89 million the BBC spends on one building – its Broadcasting House headquarters in London.

The fall was down to the previous figures coming before the BBC shifted its factual unit to Bristol in 2012, meaning shows like Hairy Bikers, Countryfile and the coverage of the RHS flower shows moved out from its Mailbox hub.

The shortage of investment from the broadcaster is a major impediment to the region’s economy.

CRBM chairman Mike Bradley said the region would be £786 million a year better off if the broadcaster invested at the same level in the Midlands as it did in the North and South.

He said: “Over the years, they have chipped and chipped away at the Midlands and after nobody made a fuss they chipped and chipped a bit more. They are treating the Midlands like a cash cow – and we are our own worst enemies. We have been allowing this to happen since 1999 and we have got to this position where we have such an abysmal return.

“That simply would not be the case if it were Scotland or Manchester – they would stand up for themselves.”

The BBC Trust has set a target of seeing 50 per cent of network budget spent outside London by 2016.

As a result, investment in all UK regions outside the Midlands – Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the North and the South – has risen significantly across the past five years.

By comparison, expenditure in London has fallen by less than 17 per cent – but it has dropped by more than 35 per cent in the Midlands, CRBM data shows.

Mr Bradley said the lack of investment in production in this region meant there were no prime-time production studios in the Midlands, as nothing is commissioned here. By comparison, there are more than 30 in Greater Manchester.

Director-general Tony Hall pledged to boost the BBC’s investment in Birmingham after taking on the roll in 2013.

Birmingham-born Tommy Nagra was parachuted in as head of BBC business development in the city in 2014.

As a result 81 jobs are set to be created by bringing the HR department and the BBC Academy to the Mailbox. A “Guerrilla Group”, to explore the next generation of BBC content, was also set up at the Custard Factory, but is expected to employ just a handful of workers.

Despite this, without further investment the Midlands is still set to see far less invested per licence fee-payer than any other region.

According to the corporation’s own report, The Economic Value of the BBC, there is a £2 return to a local economy for every £1 it spends.

On that basis, under-investment continues to cost the region hundreds of millions of pounds each year.

The broadcaster’s 10-year charter expires in December 2016 and work on the new one begins in June.

Mr Bradley said if it did not act now, it would mean the local economy missed out on billions in the decade to come.

“This is our last chance,” he said. “If we don’t use this charter as a means of ensuring a fairer distribution of public funds then we won’t get another chance.

“Every MP in the Midlands should be standing up for his. And it has to be about production. I welcome any jobs the BBC can send here but this should be about programme-making – they make programmes everywhere else. When are they moving that back?

“When are we going to see Midland faces on the television? When are we going to hear Midland voices on the radio? The BBC will tell you people don’t care about this, they only care about quality, but that is not what my post bag is saying.

“This is the only tax I know of that is raised in one area and spent in another. When I pay my PAYE I don’t want to be paying for schools and hospitals in London – I want them in the West Midlands as well.”

The West Midlands has seen its contribution to the BBC fall away in the past decade since Pebble Mill was closed in 2004.

The corporation opened its Drama Village in Selly Oak in 2005, but while it produces daytime programmes like Father Brown and Doctors it does not have a network television studio.

Indeed, the Midlands – which includes the West and East Midlands, as well as the East of England – is the only BBC region not to have a network television studio contributing towards the BBC, according to the campaign.

A BBC spokesperson said: “Birmingham is really important to us and that’s why we’ve put a lot of effort into building up the BBC in the city over the past 12 months. We’re investing an additional £23.5 million in Birmingham and are moving another 200 jobs there, including the globally respected BBC Academy.

“Licence fee-payers rightly expect us to operate efficiently, and it’s simply not affordable to have BBC studio facilities in every part of the country. But BBC Birmingham remains the home of the world’s most popular radio drama, The Archers, and popular BBC One shows like Doctors, Father Brown and forthcoming drama The Coroner.

“It’s crucial that we produce programmes and services that reflect the whole region properly and 78 per cent of people in the West Midlands say they approve of the BBC. We’re clear that BBC Birmingham will be a strong, vibrant, and sustainable base, fit for the future in a fast changing media landscape.”