MOBILE phone reception in parts of Oxfordshire has become so bad that the competitiveness of local businesses is in danger of being hit.

The claim is made to The Oxford Times today by local MEP James Elles, who says he is being inundated with calls from Oxfordshire firms who say that in some parts of the county it is increasingly difficult to find a signal.

Mr Elles said he was shocked by the accounts of the mobile phone reception problems faced by companies trying to operate in a county celebrated for its cutting-edge science and high-tech businesses.

One business woman told him she had become used to having to go to the third floor of a building to use her mobile.

And tomorrow the MEP for the South-East, who has special responsibility for Oxfordshire, will be raising the issue at a meeting with the Oxfordshire Economic Partnership.

Mr Elles said that with the mobile Internet becoming increasingly important, there was a risk of local firms being put at a serious disadvantage because of their difficulties with mobile phone reception.

He said: “Oxfordshire is a county which has many world leading businesses but future economic development could well be hampered by poor communications.

“To be on the leading edge of technical development it will be essential to have unimpeded access to mobile networks.

“The aim in Oxfordshire must be to achieve this by the end of this year.”

Mr Elles, who is vice-chairman of the European Internet Foundation, said he was given a taste of how bad things have become at a recent breakfast meeting at the Oxford offices of accountancy firm Grant Thornton.

The head of a local firm of business psychologists told him that in her holiday home in Turkey her mobile was “always clear as a bell” but in Old Kidlington she had to go to the top of the building.

He said he had heard that people in Woodstock and the west of the county also seemed to have constant problems.

Iain Nicholson, director of the Oxfordshire Chambers Network, said: “It has not been raised as an issue with us.

“Perhaps it is something that people just put up with and do not talk about unless asked about it.

“But I can well believe that this is what people are experiencing.”