Boris Johnson’s promise to provide 85% of homes and businesses in Woking with high-speed broadband by 2025 is set to be broken.

Analysis of House of Commons Library data by the Lib Dems has found that just 3.9% of premises in Woking Constituency had gigabit broadband availability in 2021.

At the current rate of progress, only 5.1% of homes and businesses in Woking will have gigabit access by 2025. This is well short of the Government’s promise of providing 85% of premises with high-speed broadband by that date.

It comes as households and business owners in Woking brace themselves for the cost of broadband to skyrocket in April. Several broadband providers have announced their prices will go up by 9.3%, in line with CPI inflation of 5.4% in December – the biggest rise in almost thirty years.

With this hike on the way, the Lib Dems in Woking are calling on the Government to legally require all broadband providers to automatically offer cheaper deals through ‘social tariffs’ for struggling families. This move could save as many as 8,376 people in Woking around £270 a year on their broadband bill.

These damning figures show the Tories are once again breaking their promises and failing to meet their targets to boost broadband speeds in Woking.

This pandemic has shown how vital access to broadband is for learning, for work and for staying connected. But local families and businesses are being left in the digital slow lane and face crippling hikes to their broadband bills, on top of tax raids and soaring energy prices.

That is why the Lib Dems and I are demanding cheaper broadband deals for struggling families in our community, saving them hundreds of pounds a year. The Government cannot stand idly by while the cost of living crisis hits residents in Woking in the pocket.