Digital 'disaster' in homeworking hot-spot
Digital 'disaster' in homeworking hot-spot
A South Yorkshire town which boasts one of the UK’s highest rates of homeworking is struggling with some of the slowest broadband speeds.
Penistone near Barnsley had hoped to access Government cash allocated to the Digital Region programme but has been told it is among 20 per cent of the county that is not eligible for a share of the money. The town and surrounding rural areas will also miss out on funding from the Government’s scheme to boost rural broadband speeds.
Local councillors are labelling the situation a digital ‘disaster’ for the area.
Penistone councillor Robert Barnard told the Sheffield Star: “It’s let down the residents who are desperate for it. Some people don’t have any broadband and in other villages they only have 1.5Mb.
“There are high numbers of professionals working from home around Penistone. And farmers have to fill in a lot of forms online these days.”
South Yorkshire is unable to receive money from the Rural Broadband Development Fund, which was launched to help the Government meet its latest target of ensuring 95 per cent of the population has access to superfast broadband by 2017.
Other urban parts of the county are also struggling to bring their broadband network up to speed. The Government’s BDUK programme does not cover Sheffield city centre and a spokesman from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which oversees the project, said that the private sector is expected to step in without the need for Government subsidies.
The four local authorities that administer the county are now in negotiations for a £20 million contract to lay fibre optic cables to carry the superfast broadband signal.
The DCMS spokesman said: “Although contracts are still being finalised, BDUK and the local authorities are expected to contribute around £8 million each to the project which will take superfast broadband to 97.8 per cent of South Yorkshire by about December 2017."
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