Faster broadband rollout continues in rural areas

More than 60,000 rural homes and businesses across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire have been connected to ultra-fast broadband.

Winterton in North Lincolnshire, Fosdyke in Lincolnshire, and Sessay and Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire are among the latest places to benefit from Project Gigabit, which is being funded by the government to the tune of about £300m.

Other villages around Barnsley, Huddersfield, Hull, Bradford, York, Boston and Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, have also benefited.

In total, 12,800 properties in East Yorkshire, 14,600 in North Yorkshire, 7,500 in South Yorkshire, 10,700 in West Yorkshire, 3,000 in York and 11,400 in Lincolnshire, have been connected, the government said.

Ian Murray, a minister at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said: "Good broadband is about giving families, workers and local businesses the tools they need to get on, wherever they live.

"The whole project being publicly funded is about going into the areas where the market cannot go or will not go because it's not profitable to be able to do so, or the infrastructure is too capital-intensive to be able to install."

The government said it wanted to connect a total of 123,000 premises in the region to faster broadband.

Hull-based company Quickline has been awarded the contract, which has resulted in 130 people joining its apprenticeship programme.

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