Better Broadband in Ochil and South Perthshire: Ewing's Mission
In the communities stretching from the Ochil Hills through the Carse of Gowrie, reliable internet access has become as essential as clean water. Households in Auchterarder, Crieff, Kinross, and the villages along the A91 corridor now depend on digital services for schooling, telehealth appointments, and small business operations. Annabelle Ewing, the Scottish National Party's candidate for Ochil and South Perthshire, has made high-speed broadband a central pillar of her campaign, arguing that digital exclusion in rural Scotland mirrors the struggles of remote communities in places like Australia.
Ewing's approach draws on her background as a solicitor and former Westminster MP, combining legal knowledge of regulatory frameworks with sustained campaigning across the constituency. She has consistently framed improved connectivity as a matter of economic justice, pointing out that farmers monitoring livestock prices or self-employed tradespeople sending invoices should not be held back by patchy fibre coverage. Her platform recognises that the digital divide is not merely a technical inconvenience but a barrier to opportunity for working families throughout the region.
Rural Connectivity Challenges in Southern Perthshire
The geography of Ochil and South Perthshire presents formidable obstacles for network operators. Steep terrain, scattered population centres, and long stretches of stone-built farmhouses make fibre-to-the-premises rollout far less attractive economically than in dense urban areas. Many properties still depend on ageing copper lines or rely on mobile hotspots that falter in poor weather. Farmers in the glens around Comrie report losing video calls with buyers precisely when market prices fluctuate.
Australian readers will recognise these frustrations. Across regional New South Wales and the wheat belt of Western Australia, properties the size of small townships wait months for technician visits, and the National Broadband Network has had to balance satellite, fixed wireless, and fibre solutions to reach remote holdings. The lessons from Tamworth, Ballarat, and the Pilbara show that rural connectivity demands sustained government subsidy, mixed-technology deployment, and clear accountability when projects miss deadlines.
| Region | Primary Technology | Rural Coverage Rate | Average Download Speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ochil and South Perthshire | Mixed fibre and copper | ~78% superfast capable | 45 Mbps |
| Regional New South Wales | NBN fixed wireless and satellite | ~85% served | 50 Mbps |
| Rural Western Australia | NBN Sky Muster and fibre | ~82% served | 38 Mbps |
| Scottish Highlands | Fibre and 4G/5G | ~72% superfast capable | 40 Mbps |
Parliamentary Advocacy and Policy Work
During her previous term as MP for Perth and Kinross, Ewing pressed successive UK ministers on the slow pace of the Reaching 100% Programme, which had originally promised gigabit-capable connectivity across Scotland by the end of the decade. She questioned ministers in Westminster Hall debates about why exchange upgrades in Comrie and Blairgowrie kept slipping, securing written commitments to publish more granular rollout data for parliamentary scrutiny.
Her legal training has shaped her stance on consumer protection. Ewing has argued that broadband contracts should mirror the protections available to Australian subscribers under the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code, where customers receive clearer information about speeds actually delivered to their premises rather than advertised headline rates. She maintains that consumers in rural Perthshire deserve transparency about when fibre will arrive, not vague statements about "future phases" that shift with each government reshuffle.
Local Engagement with Constituents and Businesses
Ewing's campaign team has run a series of broadband surgeries in community halls from Blackford to Bridge of Allan, where residents can bring connectivity frustrations directly to her staff. Local businesses, including the growing cluster of craft producers and small manufacturers in Perth, have fed into her policy submissions to the Scottish Government. The message she carries back to Holyrood and Westminster is consistent: connectivity gaps cost jobs and discourage younger families from settling in the countryside.
Her broader social policies intersect with this digital agenda in meaningful ways. Ewing has linked the rollout of better broadband to efforts to support children across Scotland through her child poverty work, pointing out that home learning, homework support, and access to remote tutoring all depend on a reliable connection. She frames broadband as part of a wider safety net for working families, rather than a standalone infrastructure project.
Lessons from International Rollouts
Ewing has studied the Australian NBN model closely, particularly the trade-offs between wholesale-only network design and retail competition. She has also examined how the European Union's Broadband Cost Reduction Directive forced member states to share infrastructure such as ducts and poles, dramatically lowering the cost of reaching isolated homes. Canada and Ireland offer further examples of how targeted vouchers and community-led schemes have closed final gaps in mountain and island communities.
For Perthshire, Ewing advocates a hybrid approach combining Scottish Government investment, Ofcom regulatory reform, and local authority coordination on wayleave permissions. She has called for a single, publicly accessible map showing planned fibre routes and completion dates, modelled loosely on transparency tools used by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Her argument is that residents should be able to hold providers and government agencies to account using the same data those agencies rely on internally.
A Practical Path Forward for the Constituency
Looking ahead, Ewing has pledged to keep broadband at the top of her priority list if returned to Westminster, promising quarterly progress reports and direct meetings with Openreach, the Scottish Government connectivity directorate, and community interest groups. She is encouraging constituents to log faults and missed appointments through her constituency office so that evidence of poor service can be escalated quickly.
The model she favours borrows from international experience while remaining tailored to Perthshire's specific terrain and settlement patterns. By combining targeted public subsidy, regulatory transparency, and community-led demand aggregation, Ewing believes the constituency can match the connectivity standards already enjoyed in comparable regional economies.
Constituents ready to support this agenda can sign up as campaign volunteers, attend a doorstep session in their village, or contact her team directly through the website to share their own broadband experiences and help shape the next phase of local campaigning across Ochil and South Perthshire.