Shropshire Council backing for Star's mobile phone signal campaign

The Get Us Connected campaign launched a petition yesterday to lobby the Government and network companies to improve the signal in the region.

At Shropshire Council's full council meeting at the Shirehall, leader Keith Barrow said: "This is a real issue. We have a wonderful local paper, the Shropshire Star, and local people and the message is we want proper mobile phone coverage.

"This is better than just one part of Shropshire, we are together across the county, and together we can do more."

He put forwarded a motion that the council work with the Shropshire Star on the petition and that it be delivered to local MPs and the Secretary for State for Culture, Media, and Sport, Sajid Javid.

It was passed unanimously.

The response to our petition shows we have struck a chord with the demand for better mobile phone coverage in Shropshire.

• Click here to sign our 'Get Us Connected' petition

• Star comment: Join Shropshire fight on mobile phone networks

You can also sign fill in the paper form in today's Shropshire Star or one in any Shropshire Council library.

The petition will be presented to Culture Secretary Sajid Javid, with copies also being sent to the big mobile phone companies and the watchdog Ofcom.

Ludlow MP Philip Dunne today added his support to the campaign and said he would be signing up.

He said: "I am delighted that others in Shropshire are joining my efforts to seek improved mobile phone coverage across the county. It is great news that both Shropshire Council and Shropshire Star newspapers are raising awareness of the lack of consistent mobile signal in Shropshire.

"This is a particular problem for many of my constituents in the south of the county, where we have the greatest rural sparsity and significant topographical challenges posed by the Shropshire Hills."

Networks

Mr Dunne said he had been carrying out his own survey on mobile phone strength with constituents in recent weeks.

He added: "I have had a substantial response with results building a picture of the worst affected areas. I am using this evidence to press the major providers, especially EE following merger of its Orange and T-Mobile services, to restore services that have been reduced with the rationalisation of their two networks of aerial masts into a single EE network.

"This has also coincided with the introduction of 4G technology, which has the potential to improve services, but does not do so for those households whose coverage has been reduced from consolidating transmission masts.

"I am also looking for ways to extend coverage to remove the notorious 'not spots' in south Shropshire. Earlier this summer I met Arqiva, the company responsible for delivering the Government's Mobile Infrastructure Project, which is seeking to identify 'not spots' to deliver signal over the next two years to those areas which currently receive no signal at all.

"As technology advances we must ensure rural areas are not left behind. With a high proportion of people working from home, and 70 per cent of new start-ups beginning at home, ensuring effective connectivity is critical for businesses of today and tomorrow. But it is also increasingly essential for local residents, as connectivity becomes a greater part of modern life for us all."

Business leaders today also continued to offer their support to the campaign.

Peter Bettis, president of the Shrewsbury Business Chamber, said: "It is very important that we improve the mobile phone signal in the town. Doing business and using mobile phones it extremely frustrating. In Shrewsbury you only have to move two yards and its gone.

"When you are trying to do business you really need network providers to give you signal and when they don't it can be lost money, which isn't good."

"We have come to rely on mobile networks and mobile business with tablets and phones and it has become a part of life and we have to get guarantees from suppliers to make sure we can get a service, because frankly its terrible at the moment.

"On behalf of the chamber we support the Shropshire Star and hope we can get a commitment from providers to get better mobile coverage."

Heather Kidd, Shropshire councillor for Chirbury and Worthen, was among the first to start campaigning about mobile signal in the rural south west of the county.

She raised a petition about a decline in signal on the EE network and the company was forced to apologise for its lack of response to complaints.

She is still waiting to hear from Business Secretary Vince Cable, after presenting him with a dossier of problems from residents and businesses when he visited Shropshire and Powys in August.

She said: "I'm really glad the Shropshire Star has taken this up. My campaign started because of deterioration in the EE signal, but as it gathered momentum I was getting people calling me with problems on Vodaphone and 02 as well.

"I've got farmers and forestry workers who are now unable to send people out and know that they are safe, because if they have a problem they can't call anyone.

"A number of businesses can no longer use phones indoors and if they have to move about, end up missing calls.

"It's not just a signal, it's got to be a reliable and good quality signal.

"And there is a bigger issue about how accountable these companies are for a poor service that they're selling.

"If you try to complain to them you get nowhere, and it does take campaigns in the newspaper to get them to sort it out.

"I will email my huge email list of people with mobile problems and say they need to sign this petition."

Problems have also been experienced in north Shropshire in towns like Wem, Ellesmere, Whitchurch and Market Drayton.

Lincoln McMullan, chairman of Ellesmere Chamber of Trade and Commerce, said he backed the Shropshire Star campaign all the way.

He said: "I totally back the idea of campaigning for better phone signal in Shropshire. In Ellesmere we are restricted to one phone company here, Orange. This is totally wrong. I think we should have roaming phone coverage like they do in Europe. You should be able to choose whatever network you like. In this area some people have two phones as one signal does not work for every place. It is ridiculous and I fully support the campaign all the way."

Staff at Madeleys Chartered Surveyors, based in Much Wenlock, also backed the Get Us Connected campaign and said better mobile phone signal was vital for farmers and rural businesses.

Angela Cantrill, senior surveyor at Madeleys, said Bridgnorth and south east Shropshire had a particularly poor phone signal.

"It is absolutely diabolical," She said. "There is a lack of signal in so many places, you do wonder why you bother owning a mobile phone at times.

"Apart from the lack of convenience, there is a safety issue when farmers are working in isolated locations that have no signal.

"It also poses a danger to livestock because a farmer cannot call a vet if there is an animal-based emergency without having to travel back to the house to use a landline.

"I have tried all the main mobile phone providers and have struggled with all of them."

Mrs Cantrill said the team at Madeleys had become aware of masts in Shropshire being decommissioned as phone providers look to cut costs.

"We have seen a number of cases where landowners have been told that a recently installed mobile phone mast is being decommissioned, which can't help the situation," she added.

David Battisby, managing partner at solicitors Lanyon Bowdler which has offices in Shropshire and Hereford, said: "The majority of our team are spending more time than ever before out of the offices and meeting clients, and mobile technology is an essential part of that.

"To be able to access emails and take calls while out of the office is essential. It increases productivity as well as the speed in which cases are dealt with.

"We have a large number of clients who live in rural Shropshire. We would certainly back the Shropshire Star campaign not only for our own benefit but for also the benefit of the clients who need such technology to conduct their own day to day business."

"We often hear reports from members of our team who have been out of the office all day and haven't had enough signal in an area to answer calls or access emails which is simply not good enough in 2014.

"It depends on the area of Shropshire you are in as to how good the signal is, but that is not ideal for us as our team cover the whole region.

He added: "Lanyon Bowdler give full backing to the Shropshire Star Get Us Connected campaign and hope the network providers will not only listen to the people of Shropshire, but also take the appropriate action sooner rather than later."

Brewer left flat by lack of service

Poor mobile phone reception across the county affects people in all forms of business.

For pub landlord, Norman Pearce, it is pointless having a mobile phone due to the lack of coverage where he works.

The landlord of the Sun Inn in Corfton for 30 years, he said there is only one place to get signal at the pub – and that's the car park.

The 67-year-old said: "Our customers have to go into the farthest corner of the car park and stand on one leg with their arm in the air to try and get signal.

"I wouldn't swear that it is the same across Corfton, but certainly in the pub we have no reception at all.

"It has always been like it, but we have noticed it improve slightly as one or two people can get signal in the pub without going outside, but it is very rare.

"Most people have to wander around the car park until they find the right spot.

"We get lots of customers saying can you just ring this person of just do that because they can't get any signal.

"Some networks are better than others but none of them work particularly well."

As a businessman, Mr Pearce, who also runs the Corvedale Brewery from the pub, said he is forced to rely on his landline because of the lack of reception where he is.

"I can't have people call me on my mobile, it's pointless even giving it out because, whether I'm in the pub or in the office, I get no signal at all," he explained.

"I get people saying they have tried calling me on my mobile and I tell them they have wasted their time.

"There's absolutely no point in me taking my phone down to the brewery."

Mr Pearce said he would support any campaign which improved signal coverage across the county.

"It definitely needs improving," he said.

"It would certainly help a lot of customers in the pub.

"And it would help me because I think a lot of people who have mobile phones prefer to call other mobile phones."

• Click here to sign our 'Get Us Connected' petition