Mark Williams MP is battling for better broadband for businesses and residents in Ceredigion.

He has co-signed a new report from the British Infrastructure Group of MPs revealing that, despite £1.7bn of taxpayers’ cash being pumped into subsiding the construction of UK high-speed broadband, there are still a 5.7 million people across Britain who cannot access the internet at the Ofcom-required 10mb/s.

In 2016, Mr Williams said people rightly expect access to high-speed connections. Whether at home or work, fast broadband should be a reality in all our communities, he said.

But in Ceredigion, he said, people are dealing with some really poor connections and gaps in services.

Ceredigion falls into the bottom 10 per cent of areas for average download speed and superfast availability.

The report, BroadBad, calls on the regulator Ofcom to take radical action over the ‘natural monopoly’ too long enjoyed by BT Openreach.

The comprehensive report, which details connection speeds in every part of the country, argues that given our modern economy being so reliant on the internet, it is time to stop being held back by BT’s lack of ambition and under-investment.

See next week’s south editions for the full story