Communities in Upper Wharfedale and Littondale are in line for huge improvements to their internet access in the latest high-speed broadband development from the Connecting North Yorkshire (CNY) initiative.
CNY is planning to install a fibre optic connection at Kettlewell School. Once it is up and running, people who sign up to the scheme will be able to access high speed broadband from a wireless hub, which transmits to surrounding communities.
The funding for the project will come from a Performance Reward Grant which North Yorkshire County Council has received for exceeding targets set by Government across public services, with matching funding from the local community and private investment from LN Communications, the internet service provider for the scheme.
County Councillor Carl Les, CNY’s chairman said:
We are delighted to have the opportunity to deliver our eleventh high speed broadband project.
We are committed to developing community based schemes in areas where high speed broadband is not commercially viable in the open market – the so called ‘broadband not spots’. We are working with our partner Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), a Government organisation tasked with ensuring that 90% of the UK can receive high quality broadband access by 2015 and 100% by 2017.
With this scheme we are delighted that local residents have got together to provide community match funding to support the CNY and LN Communications investments.
The core of the scheme through Threshfield, Conistone, Kilnsey, Kettlewell, Starbotton, Buckden, Cray, Hubberholme, Yockenthwaite, Beckermonds and Oughtershaw is confirmed to go ahead. However, we still need more people to sign up in the Littondale communities including Hawkswick, Arncliffe, Litton, Halton Gill and Foxup.
Councillor Chris Knowles-Fitton, Leader of Craven District Council said:
This is great news for Upper Wharfedale and Littondale. High quality infrastructure, including access to an appropriate broadband connection is vital to maintaining and enhancing a prosperous rural economy. The scheme will enable rural businesses and communities to benefit from broadband speeds usually only found in cities and urban areas.
Having spent almost a year campaigning for this service, local broadband champions Chris Beazley and David Hood say:
This will bring a greatly improved level of service to the Upper Wharfedale area, offering speeds up to 20Mb/s. We are also pleased that Kettlewell Primary School, as the wireless hub, will benefit from much faster Internet access as part of the scheme.
Julian Smith, Member of Parliament for Skipton and Ripon said:
I pay tribute to the community leaders and hard work from many that has brought this project forward. It will be a great boost to business and communities in one of the most rural parts of my constituency.
Martyn Boswell, Technical Director of LN Communications said:
We are very pleased to be working with such a cooperative and proactive community as Upper Wharfedale, in partnership with NYCC and NYnet, to bring connectivity to areas that really need a high-speed broadband investment.
It is yet another challenging project but we will ensure that this community, along with others across the region, have access to super fast broadband.
To register an interest in the scheme, or to find out more information, visit www.fastuwdale.net
The CNY team, supported by LN Communications, will be holding a meeting in Kilnsey Village Hall on March 14 at 5.30pm to explain the scheme.
More details on how rural communities can benefit from the Connecting North Yorkshire project are on the Council’s website www.northyorks.gov.uk/broadband
