MP in bid to get Superfast Broadband to South Lakeland

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron will head a team of 8 Hub Co-ordinators and around 60 Broadband Pioneers in a bid to get next-generation superfast broadband to every home in the South Lakes.

Tim chaired a meeting on Saturday involving 40 of the Pioneers and representatives from the County Council. The project is committed to using some of the £10 million that Tim helped secure for increasing broadband access in Cumbria. The scheme involves working at the community level to raise awareness of the need for and a desire to obtain superfast broadband, as well as implementing its installation. At present, South Lakeland lags behind the rest of the country in terms of broadband speeds, and the scheme aims not only to change this but to put the region at the front of the race. High-speed internet access is set to become increasingly necessary over the coming years as more and more services move online, from telemedicine to television and video calls.

Commenting, Tim said: "I am very excited by this project. It is a huge opportunity to dramatically improve the infrastructure of the South Lakes, and give us the fastest broadband in the country. At the moment many houses in this area can't get broadband at all, or get ridiculously low speeds. This puts the South Lakes at a massive and completely unacceptable disadvantage - which we will not only correct but also make sure that the new system can deliver the predicted speed increases for years to come."