Anger at long wait for broadband improvements near Midhurst

Faced with ‘incredibly slow’ internet speeds, residents living in a small hamlet between the town and Cocking banded together and successfully applied to the rural gigabit broadband voucher scheme.

This is jointly funded by central government and West Sussex County Council.

Julian Neal, a retired GP, described how Openreach and the county council were very helpful during the application process, but half-way through they discovered about the year-long wait before anything is installed.

He questioned why, with other essential services going into ‘overdrive’ during the pandemic, extra resources could not be deployed by Openreach to speed things up. More waiting has left his neighbours increasingly ‘angry and frustrated’.

He said: “For all sorts of reasons the broadband here is really unsuitable and almost at stone age speeds.”

Due to the slow speeds Dr Neal was unable to use the online NHS platform to help out with the Covid efforts.

His neighbours are running into the same problems home working as two people cannot be on Zoom calls at the same time in one household.

Some families have had problems when their children have been home schooled, with people also having difficulties contacting younger relatives when they are shielding.

He has contacted Chichester MP Gillian Keegan, who has forwarded their concerns on to the government’s minister for digital infrastructure at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

An Openreach spokesman said: “Community Fibre Partnerships (CFPs) are a great solution for communities that need better connectivity but haven’t been included in Government or commercial broadband upgrade plans.