Dozens of residents from villages surrounding Burnham-On-Sea have voiced their anger at the slow roll-out of super-fast broadband in the area during a meeting with the town’s MP.
Over 120 people attended a public meeting on Friday organised by Burnham’s MP James Heappey where bosses from BT and Connecting Devon and Somerset were on hand to respond to the concerns.
Residents are concerned that while the Connecting Devon and Somerset website shows many areas as being superfast-enabled, many residents are actually too far away from the BT cabinets to experience any improvement to their Internet speed.
“No matter what the success of the Government-funded roll-out elsewhere, those left without are feeling understandably angry,” Mr Heappey told Burnham-On-Sea.com afterwards.
“It’s really important that local people get to express their frustration at the fact that they have not benefited from the super-fast broadband roll-out yet.”
He added: “The reality is that even though people are being connected, and locally there are many with super-fast broadband who wouldn’t have had it previously, those who don’t are understandably angry they they have missed out.”
“Friday’s meeting allowed residents to express their views to Connecting Devon and Somerset and BT – and have the process explained to them on how we might collectively accelarate the process.”
“I’m 100% confident that local villages will get super-fast broadband as part of the government’s roll-out programme. The issue is how quickly.”
“There are options which we will explore to make it happen more quickly and that may incur some co-investment – but there was an appetite for that, which we are now looking into.”
What’s your opinion? Contact Burnham-On-Sea.com on the roll-out of super-fast broadband in the area.
