We have all now seen the troubling pictures coming out of Afghanistan. Even while the cameras are not rolling, the hard work by our forces to help the most vulnerable Afghans and Britons still in Kabul continues. This week I’ve met with Ministers in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence to share my concern about the situation and been in touch with our consular support team to provide support to any British and Afghan nationals in the country with connections to our area. At the time of writing, almost 6,000 people had been evacuated to safety.
I know that many residents in West Sussex continue to struggle with access to fast and reliable broadband at a time when it has become more important than ever. This is one of my priorities and the overall picture is positive: the number of homes able to receive speeds of over 30Mbs in Arundel & South Downs has almost doubled over the last couple of year: it’s currently 65% of homes with only 1% remaining who can’t access even 10Mbs. Despite this, there is still more to be done. I have been pressing Ministers and in the last few weeks have helped West Sussex secure more than £110 million of “Project Gigabit” funding to provide another 68,000 of the most rural homes and businesses with much faster broadband. This is coming in 2022 but for many readers there is a solution right now in the form of Community Fibre Partnerships worth up to a generous £4,000 of funding per home. I’ve already supported a number of communities under this scheme with more currently in the pipeline. Any village or district who is interested, please get in touch.
Finally, it was a joy to join the opening of the 2021 Arundel Festival of the Arts on Friday. The streets of the town were once more echoing with choirs, music and applause. Planning events like this over the last year has been a challenge, but the team who have put on the outstanding Festival running-order have delivered a safe and successful programme of events for our community to enjoy.
