Councillor hits out at critics over Shropshire broadband rollout
The councillor behind the roll-out of high speed internet across the county today hit out at critics' claims that Shropshire is being short changed when it comes to broadband.
Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council's cabinet member with responsibility for connecting homes and businesses to superfast broadband, set out to dispel "myths" in an open letter published today by the Shropshire Star.
Shropshire Council is working with BT to upgrade as many homes and businesses as possible to broadband speeds of 20mbps.
But over the past year the partnership has been criticised by campaigners who say rural areas lag behind urban areas in terms of priority, while those in the countryside struggle with some of the lowest speeds in the country or no connection at all.
Earlier this year Mardu Lane, a country road in the Whitcott Keysett area near Clun, was named as the fourth slowest in the country in a survey by market-comparing website uSwitch with a data speed of just 0.884Mbps.
The league tables released by information website Thinkbroadband showed south Shropshire was among the worst performing areas in the country, with less than half of the population having access to internet speeds over 30mbps.
Councillor Charmley said: "While some may not agree with our strategy this does not mean that our strategy is wrong."
He said millions had been invested in delivering better broadband to all Shropshire communities, but it would take time to complete, and there were strict restrictions on how money could be used.
He said phase one – to connect 87 per cent of premises – was on target to be completed by the end of 2016.
"To date we have delivered to over 35,000 premises (out of 64,000), all of which now have access to fibre enabled service," he said.
