“Whenever we approach our period of annual national remembrance to honour those who sacrificed their lives for our nation, I often think about the ways in which we remember them in Romsey. Our community always works hard to ensure there are symbols of remembrance in Romsey and this year the beautiful handmade poppies filling the planters in Market Place are incredibly striking and make sure anyone who visits our town can take a moment to reflect on the hundred years that have passed since the end of the Great War.

I was encouraged to hear that mobile phone signal had been restored (at the time of writing) to residents in the Stockbridge area. The extended delays of around 7 weeks to repair the damaged phone mast has caused significant disruption to residents and businesses alike and I hope to hear from Openreach – who maintain the masts – about their resilience plans. I have found it deeply concerning to discover the lack of planning for such an outage and hope lessons have been learned to prevent such issues in the future.

At the same time, the march of superfast broadband continues south through the constituency with Stockbridge and King’s Somborne being the most recent areas to be ‘switched on’. I understand Michelmersh and Timsbury are next before Houghton, Broughton and the Tytherley’s are connected in the coming months.”

CAROLINE NOKES MP