Internet speeds in Crawley

A recent data release from the House of Commons Library caught my eye last month. The library has produced a collection of stats detailing internet connectivity and differences in speed for every constituency in the UK.

It should come as no surprise that Crawley is better connected than most parts of the UK. Only five constituencies have fewer people with speeds below 30mbps and we’re in the top quarter of constituencies for gigabit speed broadband (86.6% connected, compared to a 68.5% UK average).

This hasn’t been without its difficulties. For much of my time leading Crawley, I was arguing with other council leaders who wanted to prioritise public subsidies for rolling broadband out to rural areas, something which seemed hard to justify considering the high cost per household compared to the West Sussex’s most densely populated town which happens to contain around 40% of all the county’s economic activity.

Fortunately, a compromise was found which enabled us to secure access to the fastest speeds within Crawley. I know that the impact in terms of roadworks has been painful, but economists are clear on the benefits of having the fastest connections upon being attractive to businesses and private investment and to fail to invest early on would have resulted in the same level of disruption when the infrastructure was eventually rolled as the default level of UK connectivity only without the economic benefits for the area.

While there do seem to be some who are determined to oppose every attempt to invest in the town, surveys show that they are by far the minority, just a demographic which happens to be over-represented on social media. It was right that the council worked hard to bring the fastest connectivity to Crawley and we will go on working to provide residents with the best services and facilities we can secure for as long as we are able.