MARLBOROUGH Chamber of Commerce in New Zealand is looking for help from its Wiltshire namesake to make the town of Blenheim the fastest area in Australasia.

Blenheim has the biggest population in the region of Marlborough and it has put out a plea for residents in Wiltshire to vote for it to become the first town in the Southern hemisphere to access a one gigabit per second internet connection.

The competition is running on www.gigatown.co.nz and people can visit the site to vote for Blenheim.

Debbie Carter, office manager at Marlborough Chamber of Commerce, said: “This would mean that Blenheim and Marlborough could grow enormously as we would have 1,000 megabits per second internet access. “When Chatanooga won this in the US they created 6,500 new jobs and young people stopped leaving the town.

“Our town is amazing, but our young people do leave and we are becoming the fastest growing retirement town in New Zealand, when really we want to become the most innovative town.”