WEST Belfast MP Paul Maskey has welcomed the installation of a new mobile phone signal box on the Glen Road.
It comes after lobbying from Sinn Féin following the party’s recent survey which found that 87 percent of respondents complained of poor phone signal in the constituency, resulting on people missing medical appointments and impacting on job opportunities.
Now new mobile phone infrastructure has been erected on the Glen Road. According to the survey, the Glen Road was one of the worst affected areas of West Belfast.
Paul Maskey welcomed the development.
“It's great to see investment in new infrastructure which we hope will be operational in the coming weeks to begin to alleviate some of the signal issues,” he said. “The Glen Road was one of the worst reported areas in our survey so we are delighted that the new infrastructure has been installed here.
"We also welcome a timeline for repairs of existing infrastructure from Cornerstone.
"We will be meeting with phone companies in London to bring our case directly to them for better phone signal in West Belfast. Our residents and businesses are paying full price but receiving very little service.”
Seán McHenry, Head of Town Planning at Cornerstone, a leading data and mobile infrastructure provider, said: “We’re pleased to have worked with locally elected representatives and Belfast City Council’s Planning Department to deliver a new mast in West Belfast. It’s due to go live in coming weeks and will help restore and improve mobile coverage in an area that’s been badly affected by vandalism in recent months. We appreciate that damage to this infrastructure has had an impact upon the local community.
“This is one of several steps we’re taking to strengthen connectivity in West Belfast over the coming months. We have upcoming reinstatement and replacement works for infrastructure that has been vandalised and are upgrading other infrastructure to improve service across Belfast. This will deliver significant benefit to local communities, visitors, residents and businesses whom depend on the mobile connectivity from our infrastructure.
“We’ll continue to work with Paul Maskey MP and team as well as local authorities to get infrastructure in the right places, but the Planning system in the North of Ireland still needs reform. The current process makes it harder than it should be to deliver the connectivity people rely on every day.
“We’d welcome action from the Minister and Department for Infrastructure to help address that.”
