Queen's Speech: LGA responds to broadband announcement

"With access found to be patchy in some areas, it is critical the Government ensures good mobile coverage nationwide, especially in more remote areas."

View allDigital connectivity articles

Responding to the announcement in the Queen’s Speech of new legislation to accelerate the delivery of fast, reliable and secure broadband networks to millions of homes, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s People and Places Board, Cllr Kevin Bentley, said:

“Councils need to be able to ensure all new homes have access to fast and reliable digital connectivity. Under the current legislation, councils are powerless to stop new builds going up without full fibre broadband and in some cases have even faced legal challenge by developers when trying to use the planning system to ensure proper broadband provision.

“Equally important is a decent mobile connection. With access found to be patchy in some areas, it is critical the Government ensures good mobile coverage nationwide, especially in more remote areas. This is why we are calling on the Government to work with Ofcom to launch a rural mobile roaming scheme allowing customers to roam onto any available network should 4G coverage not reach 95 per cent by 2022."