In February 2012, the station announced the award of a five-year extension to its community radio licence, taking the project through until June 2017. However, in April 2012, the station ceased FM broadcasts due to an issue with the location of the station's transmitter requiring a full move of broadcast equipment. Although the station declared on its website that operations were continuing as normal online during this downtime, the station was cited as in breach of its broadcast licence by Ofcom in June 2012. NE1fm successfully returned to 102.5 FM on 7 August 2012.