OVER 90 people attended a broadband summit held by North West Hampshire MP Kit Malthouse last week.

Local businesses and representatives from Hampshire County Council, BT and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport attended the summit held last Friday in Andover.

The summit was held to discuss ways that access to superfast broadband across the constituency could be universal and Mr Malthouse resolved to work with the Government to release allocated funds so that all residents and businesses could access broadband with a download speed of at least two megabits per second.

In addition he said he would lobby the Government to allocate further funds to ensure the remaining five per cent of homes and businesses got access to superfast broadband.

Mr Malthouse said: “Fast broadband is vital for rural communities, especially as more and more of our lives move online, from banking and tax matters to e-health and education and it was good to see the commitment especially from Hampshire County Council.

“The summit laid down a marker with the organisations involved in the rollout (showing) that north west Hampshire is willing to be constructive in getting connected – (the fact) that we had nearly 100 people attend on a wet Friday morning, shows how important this is to people.”