The Country Land & Business Association (CLA) has expressed relief that the government has recognised that rural areas of the UK risk being left behind in the nationwide scheme to roll out super-fast broadband.
Earlier in the week, Secretary of State Caroline Spelman wrote that she feared that communities in the countryside had been abandoned by the government, with many of them tasked with solving problems like getting connected to broadband services themselves, with no help provided by government funds and subsidies.
While households and businesses in and around towns and cities are seeing the local infrastructure improved by the installation of fibre optic broadband cables, a lot of remote communities, which includes both households and businesses have no choice but to use slower dial up connections or look for ways to fund the roll out of fibre cabling themselves.
President of the CLA Harry Cotterell believes that acknowledgement of this growing gap between urban and rural areas by a government minister will provide a boost to rural communities, provided that some action comes from Mrs Spelman’s announcement.
Mr Cotterell said: “The measures to help the rural economy, announced by the Chancellor in November, were a good start but still more needs to be done to ensure fairness for rural communities and businesses.”
Mr Cotterell also called for the government to commit to providing faster broadband connections for everyone regardless of where they live, as well as ensuring that rural workers can afford to buy their own homes and that business rates that those with empty properties are forced to pay would be scrapped.
The government has budgeted £530 million for their scheme to improve broadband services in rural areas, although critics argue that the figure is not large enough to ensure that every community in the country will have access to the improved network.