PICTURES show the outgoing Prime Minister on his visit to the county to mark the launch of a £5billion superfast internet project.
Boris Johnson visited Henbury Farm in Sturminster Marshall, where Wessex Internet are laying fibre optics in the field. His visit marks new data showing that 70 percent of the UK is now benefitting from gigabit broadband coverage.
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Mr Johnson was visiting north Dorset during his last week as PM, where work is kicking off on the first major contract under the Government’s Project Gigabit, the £5 billion programme to roll out more reliable broadband to hard-to-reach areas.
To view more pictures of the PMs visit scroll through our interactive gallery above
Boris Johnson said the “driving out” of gigabit broadband across the countryside “will deliver the basic fundamentals for prosperity and growth for decades to come”.
He said: “What we’re looking at here is the effort of companies up and down the country, but particularly here is North Dorset where what they’re doing is putting in gigabit broadband at an incredible pace and they’re doing it with Government support.”
He added: “When I first became Prime Minister only 7% of the premises in this country had gigabit broadband, that’s now up to 70%. If you put it into remote rural communities what you’re going to do is level up.
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“If you give people opportunities they wouldn’t have had…the ability to connect in a way that was completely unimaginable and that enables businesses to thrive and prosper in remote areas. It means people can stay where they grew up, they don’t have to go to live in towns or cities and it is absolutely transformational.”
He added: “What we’re seeing now is the driving out of gigabit communications across the countryside and that will deliver the basic fundamentals for prosperity and growth for decades to come.”
During his visit to the county, Mr Johnson also acknowledged that people would face “tough” months ahead due to the soaring cost of living but promised more announcements on energy security, including on nuclear power.
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He said a huge amount of help had already been announced to cope with rising energy costs, but his successor as prime minister – Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak – would be able to provide “a further package of support”.
“Whichever of the two candidates gets in next week, what the Government is also going to do is provide a farther package of support for helping people with the cost of energy,” he said.
“What we’ve got to do is get through the tough months – and I’m not going to shrink from this, it is going to be tough in the months to come,” he said.
But Mr Johnson said he wanted to give people a “sense of hope and perspective” because their consumption of Russian fossil fuels had already declined and the Government had a “long-term British energy security strategy”.
“We’re putting in more nuclear – you’re going to be hearing more about that later this week – and we’re putting in absolutely shedloads of wind power”.
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