Local AMs have once again highlighted poor Broadband speeds in Pembrokeshire.

Local Assembly Member Paul Davies was recently selected to lead a debate in the Assembly Chamber, and opted to speak on the lack of Broadband Services in Pembrokeshire as it’s an issue which is regularly raised by local people.

“I was pleased to speak in the chamber about this issue, as it needs highlighting on such a public platform. A 2017 report entitled ‘Digital Exclusion Heatmap’ by Go.On UK identified that Pembrokeshire was one of the Welsh counties where digital exclusion is high,” he said.

“It is essential that the needs of those with limited broadband or no broadband at all in Pembrokeshire will be met and not neglected at the expense of delivering superfast broadband in other areas.

“I was concerned to learn that 3747 households in Pembrokeshire do not receive broadband speeds of at least 10 megabytes per second, and over 13 per cent of adults in the County had not been online in the last three months.

“This simply isn’t good enough as many people in Pembrokeshire rely on the internet to run their businesses, help to tackle loneliness and to keep people connected with friends and family. I won’t stop raising this with the Welsh Government until we see real progress,” he continued.

In response to the debate on broadband provision in Pembrokeshire, Eluned Morgan AM said: “Over the last five years, Welsh Government has invested over £226 million of our own budget supported by EU funding to help connect homes and businesses in some of the most hard to reach places, despite broadband not being devolved to Wales.

“So in Pembrokeshire, because of that investment, far more people have access to superfast broadband than would have been the case if rollout been left to the commercial market and the UK Government.

“In his response, I was pleased to hear Minister Lee Waters say that he was open to examining new ways of delivering broadband in future. But, if we are to see real change, Paul Davies must challenge his own UK Government to strengthen the Universal Service Obligation, making fibre broadband a right for everyone and to increase the minimum fibre service speed from 10mbps to 30mbps.”