Gavin Williamson, MP for South Staffordshire has welcomed progress from Superfast Staffordshire in rolling out fibre broadband to villages in South Staffordshire.
Superfast Staffordshire is working with Staffordshire County Council to roll out the broadband project to give residents and businesses across the county access to high speed fibre optic broadband. The Superfast Staffordshire project is a partnership between Staffordshire County Council, BT and the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme.
So far over 53,000 premises in Staffordshire are now fibre broadband enabled, with the latest villages to benefit being the South Staffordshire villages of Kinver, Stourton and Enville. The total of cabinets that are now live has reached 300. Earlier in the year £146,000 was also secured for the Women and Broadband project, supporting the county’s female entrepreneurs and small businesses run by women.
Superfast Staffordshire also announced that cabinets 3 and 4 that are situated in Pattingham went live at the end of last week meaning that over 700 more homes in the village now have access to superfast internet.
Cllr Mark Winnington, Staffordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for economy, Environment and Transport said: “We recognised the importance of superfast broadband many years ago and that is why we have invested over £8 million in the superfast speed for Staffordshire. The report out today and the increasing number of people online shows what a significant roll the internet plays in all our lives and how dependant people and businesses are on faster speeds.”
On hearing the news Gavin said: “The roll out of fibre broadband in Kinver Stourton and Enville is brilliant news for residents and businesses of those villages. During the election, notably during one of my Q&A events in Kinver, the question of when superfast broadband would be delivered was one that was asked over and over again and to now be able to say that Kinver, Stourton and Enville has high speed access to the internet is fantastic.
“Although it is great news that these three villages now have access to high speed broadband. It is important that we continue the good work across South Staffordshire. I have recently met with BT to discuss the delays and push for progress in roll-out in other villages across the constituency and I will continue to do so until the whole of South Staffordshire is superfast.”