Gavin Williamson, MP for South Staffordshire, is launching a constituency-wide campaign to improve the speeds of Superfast Broadband in the constituency.
South Staffordshire’s current broadband download speeds are ranked at 567 out of 650 parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom. At present, the average download speed in some of the more rural areas such as Himley and Swindon stand at 5.7mb/s compared with 31.9mb/s in neighbouring urban constituency Wolverhampton South West.
The campaign hopes to also expand on the access to Superfast Broadband that urban areas enjoy, such as Wolverhampton North East, where 99% of residents are able to access Superfast Broadband compared to 72% of those living in neighbouring South Staffordshire.
Gavin is launching the campaign in Himley and Swindon with District Councillor Roger Lees this weekend.
Commenting on the launch of his campaign Gavin said: “In modern society, broadband and mobile phones have become an essential part of day to day life, for homes, businesses and in education. I think it is disgraceful that South Staffordshire’s average download speed ranks as poorly as 567 out of the 650 parliamentary constituencies in the UK so it is for this reason that this campaign is of fundamental importance to helping and improving our communities.
“I fail to see why there is such a disparity between neighbouring constituencies, therefore I am pushing for real change. Rural areas should not be disadvantaged on the basis of their location. Residents in these areas have just the same need of broadband as those in the cities, if not more due to limited access to city centres.
“I would urge constituents to support my campaign so that residents of South Staffordshire will be able to enjoy the broadband speeds that residents in Wolverhampton enjoy and so that our constituency will not fall technologically behind.”