Victoria Atkins, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Louth & Horncastle, met farmers and villagers in the west of the constituency this week to discuss rural broadband, as part of her longstanding campaign to improve access to the internet. Whilst improvements are being made in many parts of the constituency through the OnLincolnshire scheme, these residents have been told by BT that they will not receive even basic broadband services.
“Residents in Harrington, Langton and similar areas continue to suffer real problems with internet access,” stated Victoria. “They have been told by BT engineers that they fall into the 3% of the population who will not benefit from the roll-out of basic, let alone superfast, broadband.
“This is not acceptable – particularly when we are working hard to create a thriving local economy.
“This lack of connectivity has a real impact on local businesses which need broadband for everything from accepting orders and downloading important business documents to online banking. It also affects family life, hindering Skype calls and cutting short visits from relatives who need the internet for work.
“These residents pay the same charges to BT as people living in city centres, yet they must rely on internet dongles taped to windows to try to connect to the web.
“I will not ignore these residents and am gathering evidence to present to the relevant authorities,” promised Victoria. “If you are suffering from similar problems, please contact me so that I can include your evidence.”