400,000 homes in rural areas of Britain set for broadband boost in Express campaign win
Residents are being urged to use Openreach's online fibre checker to find out if their area is set for an upgrade.
Openreach is to bring full-fibre broadband to more than 500 locations, serving a further 2.7 million homes and businesses.
Some 400,000 premises set to benefit are in the hardest-to-reach, most rural parts of the country.
These include Haworth in West Yorks, Saundersfoot in South Wales, Pinxton, Derbyshire, Roborough, Devon and Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull in Argyll and Bute.
And 16 towns and villages in Essex will also benefit including Earls Colne, Harlow and Saffron Walden.
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It comes after the Daily Express launched a Get Britain Connected crusade to assist forgotten or ignored communities.
The work is part of Openreach’s £15billion project to upgrade the broadband infrastructure. It wants to make gigabit tech available to 25 million homes and businesses by the end of 2026, including 6.2 million in rural areas.
Clive Selley, chief executive of Openreach, said: “We’re on track and on-budget to make this life-changing broadband technology available to 25 million homes and businesses.
“We plan to build right across the UK, from cities and towns to far-flung farms and island communities.
“Ultimately, we’ll reach as many as 30 million premises by the end of the decade if there’s a supportive political and regulatory environment.
“Over time, we’ve learnt to deliver predictably, consistently and at a rapid pace – despite this being a hugely complex national engineering project.
“That gives us confidence to be even clearer about our build plans and we want to be as transparent as possible about where and when we’re building.
“Today we’re publishing more detail than ever about the places we’re building in now, and the communities we’ll be upgrading next.”
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Kieran Wines, Openreach’s director for the East of England, added: “This is a huge infrastructure success story across the region. No company is building faster or further in Europe, that we’re aware of.
“We won’t be stopping either. We plan to build even further across the region, to more cities and towns, and our most rural communities.
“And our engineers, of which 3,000 live in the region, are doing this at a rapid pace – despite this being a hugely complex engineering project.”
He urged people to use Openreach’s online fibre checker to find about local work. Once it is available “you’ll need to place an order with a provider of your choice to get connected and we’ll do the rest”.
