Kit Malthouse, Conservative Candidate for North West Hants, has welcomed new steps being taken by the government to improve mobile coverage and end ‘partial not-spots’ – areas where there is coverage from one or more but not all of the four mobile networks – in North West Hampshire.
According to Ofcom 19% per cent of the county of Hampshire suffers from these partial not-spots making it harder for people to communicate and businesses to operate, putting growth and jobs at risk.
The government are working with mobile operators to try to find voluntary improvements as well as considering if new laws are required to improve coverage. As part of this they will look at allowing people to use other networks when their own cannot provide a signal or, alternatively, requiring companies to cover a certain geographic percentage of the UK.
Improving mobile coverage and investing in rural broadband have been longstanding commitments by the government as they seek to help businesses compete, expand and create more jobs, boosting local growth.
Kit Malthouse commented:
‘As I ping around this huge constituency too often I find my mobile reception is poor or non-existent – Much of the Bourne Valley often seems cut off and there are problems around Burghclere and Baughurst. I know it is a real headache for rural businesses so this new effort to get something done is very welcome. The prosperity of this entire area depends on the success of small business. As business owner myself I know we all need to be able to talk to our customers, anytime, anywhere.”
“It would be really helpful if people could email me at kit@kitmalthouse.com with particular areas that they think are bad and then we can try and get them sorted out.”