Hundreds of residents in Coulby Newham are without access to good quality broadband. Despite paying some of the highest council tax rates in Middlesbrough, residents on streets like Applegarth and The Covert describe the situation as unbearable.
Newly-elected MP Simon Clarke and Conservative Councillor for the area, Jacob Young, have today held a meeting with Virgin Media to discuss the situation and how it can be improved as quickly as possible.
Following their talks they have agreed to conduct a site visit with representatives of Virgin Media, while the company is going to provide detailed analysis of what an upgrade would cost. The cost of any upgrade will be linked to uptake among residents and so Simon and Jacob are encouraging residents to visit www.virginmedia.com/cablemystreet to sign up to register interest.
Simon Clarke MP said, “The Government intends to deliver superfast broadband of at least 24Mbps to 95% of the UK by the end of this year. However, residents on some streets in Coulby Newham struggle to achieve even 1Mbps. This is unacceptable and I’m grateful to Jacob for coordinating the very helpful talks today – we’ve made progress and I’ll be contacting residents on affected streets to urge them to speak to Virgin. If you live on a road in Coulby where you can’t get decent broadband, please let me know.”
Councillor Jacob Young said, “It’s absurd that residents in Coulby Newham have had to suffer poor broadband for so long. Why my Labour colleagues, the Council as a whole and our previous MPs have failed to tackle this issue is beyond me. I’ll work closely with Simon to ensure residents get the broadband they need and deserve.”
Applegarth resident Ted Law said, “We can at times only access 1Mbps which is unworkable. In a recent Coulby blog on Facebook there were over 50 householders who have the same issue. This would be something that would make a great deal of improvement to our local area.”