Many villagers living in South Cumbria have endured longstanding issues with their broadband connection - but there's good news on the horizon.

A £108 million broadband scheme to improve connectivity is rolling out to several areas across rural Cumbria.

Broadband provider Fibrus was awarded the Project Gigabit contract for Cumbria in November 2022 with a remit for the provision of full-fibre broadband to up to 60,000 premises in the area.

Emma Hatton represents 22 properties at Broughton Mills that have been left without sufficient broadband connection.

She is acting as a Fibrus Hub Coordinator and is liaising between residents of Broughton Mills and Fibrus during the planned roll-out of broadband improvements.

Emma said: “We just want a faster, more reliable service, something that is already provided to our very near neighbours. It’s not a luxury - broadband is an essential utility nowadays."

Some residents have opted to invest in a satellite system but this is an expensive option in the region of £60-80 per month.

“I don’t feel that people should lose out and have to pay a premium just because they live in a rural area,” Emma said.

“It will be nice to be able to access this money from the government, some areas are way, way behind, there are big gaps in connectivity, a great disparity between the centre of town and areas just a few miles out.”

This lack of infrastructure affects the running of Emma's family farming business as she is limited by the slow unreliable connection.

Alongside most of her neighbours, she only has access to speeds of 2Mbps, or less, via existing Openreach infrastructure and currently relies on 4G.

Emma has been relying on 4G for three years but this costs a certain amount every month and can be affected by the weather.

She said while this is manageable for basic emails and internet use, the main problem is uploading and downloading information.

Over half of all properties in Barrow now have gigabit speed broadband, read more here.

This has caused issues with CCTV equipment used for farm security and monitoring stock.

Being unable to depend on fast and reliable internet access has hindered her ability to use technology to help with the running of the farm business.

Emma said: “We are not asking for anything unreasonable; this is something that can affect people's livelihoods and social connectivity together with the value and sale of properties.”

Her fight for fair broadband coverage started before the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2018.

Initial inquiries were made to the original infrastructure provider BT Openreach however they quoted figures of around £20,000 per property to pay for private connections, she said.

Changes have also been made to the broadband available on Walney, read more here.

In 2021, a private company called Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN) applied for Government money to invest in extending broadband availability to more remote areas but Broughton Mills did not fulfill the necessary criteria.

Emma said the criteria was very restrictive and Broughton and the surrounding parishes could not fulfil; the requirements within the limited timescale.

She said that while central areas are well served and better connected, outlying areas seem to have been 'abandoned'.

Emma knows of many more people and properties across the Furness area including Kirkby and up into Ulpha Valley where connection is an issue.

Fibrus has pledged to improve and extend the network to improve broadband access to harder-to-reach parts of rural communities.

Amongst others, Great Broughton, Staveley, Warwick Bridge and Windermere have already been connected by Fibrus and Project Gigabit.

The funding will run until 2026 with Fibrus committing to connecting thousands of properties across Cumbria in that time, including areas of Broughton and surrounding parishes such as Broughton Mills.

They are also planning to connect Keswick, Askam-in-Furness, Cleator Moor, Dalton-in-Furness, Grange-over-Sands, Ulverston, Flookburgh, Ambleside, Barrow and many more.

The contract focuses on connecting some of the hardest-to-reach premises across Cumbria.

Sue McWilliam is acting as the hub coordinator for broadband in the Ulpha area, where she represents 19 properties.

She said: “I’ve been working for a number of years and hit a lot of brick walls along the way.

“Nineteen properties still have appalling internet speeds, frequent outages, power, cuts, etc. A number of us are trying to run businesses and it’s proving very challenging.

"There appears to have been a lack of a structured plan and timeframe leaving the community in limbo for a number of years, with goal posts changing all the time leading to uncertainty and frustration.

"It also feels unfair that others in the locality that already have a reasonable broadband speed are now being upgraded when we are still waiting."