For the past few years I’ve been meeting Broadband companies who are considering investing in Weston.

Given the number of you who’d been in touch about snail-slow internet speeds before the pandemic started, you can imagine how much more important it’s become since Covid lockdowns have pushed us all onto Zoom and Google Meets now we’re all working and learning from home.

The problem has been that, no matter which broadband firm you used, they all used the same underlying cables and fibre owned by BT Openreach. They had a monopoly and, if you or I didn’t like what they were offering, there wasn’t any choice. We couldn’t take our business elsewhere, so we were captive customers and BT Openreach could take us all for granted.

As you can imagine, I was very keen to change all that. If we can get top-class digital connections through the town and nearby villages, Weston will be well-set to be a leading hub for the next generation of jobs and investment.

And the good news is that the other Broadband companies I spoke with - CityFibre, TrueSpeed, and Virgin - were just as keen on Weston as me. I was able to flag up areas where speeds were slowest, and many local residents registered their interest as well. If you'd like to be one of them, just visit the likes of Virgin, TrueSpeed and CityFibre and sign up (it’s as easy as entering your postcode).

It all helped. Virgin Media are already installing Ultrafast Fibre Broadband and, this week I got the news that CityFibre will be joining them, laying ultrafast fibre cables in Milton and Weston Village. That just leaves TrueSpeed of the three firms who’d expressed an interest so, if they read the Mercury, the message is clear: you’d be very welcome, and don’t get left behind by your rivals!

Weston MP John Penrose