Poor phone signal hurts rural economy says MP Owen Paterson

In a frank and open discussion with farming experts from chartered surveyors firm Carter Jonas, on the Sansaw Industrial Estate near Shrewsbury, the Environment Secretary and North

Shropshire MP railed against the poor service for mobile phones in rural areas.

He also told the closed meeting that he plans to discuss the issue with one of the major service providers.

"Today I have been to the opening of a brand new dairy, we are now in the middle of an industrial estate, Defra has been trying to contact me, but nobody has been able to get in touch," he said. "I'm fed up with it.

"We have got to get our act together and get a world class mobile phone system.

"It is incredibly damaging to the rural economy – you need broadband and mobile phones. The key thing is to have mobile phone signal when you are moving around, but it's impossible to get a signal between my five towns."

Mr Paterson took questions on a range of topics from HS2, Shrewsbury's proposed North West Relief Road, and the trade deal which will see Russia begin to buy British beef exports once more, to use of land for growing energy crops and reforms to Common Agricultural Policy in the EU.

And while he avoided discussing the effects of the proposed relief road on small farms on its route, he also dismissed as "stupid" the idea of building windfarms instead of anaerobic digesters for renewable power in Shropshire.

He said: "There are appropriate places for renewable technology, and building wind turbines in Shropshire is a stupid thing to do, as the trees grow straight and there's very little wind.

"I'm clear that round here the appropriate renewable would be anaerobic digestion.

"We have a lot of chicken and cattle waste and waste from food production, so anaerobic digestion is a very sensible way to produce renewable energy."