AN innovative ‘self-dig’ scheme in remote Cumbria is celebrating getting its first customers online.

All 58 premises that make up The Fell End Broadband project – spread across a 15-kilometre network between Sedbergh and Kirkby Stephen – will soon be able to access speeds of up to 330Mbps after residents helped to pay for the fibre broadband network themselves.

The completed project is the culmination of four years of fundraising, planning and engineering work.

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It was spearheaded by Ravenstonedale Parish Council, who hatched the ambitious plan after realising the community was too remote to benefit from the countywide roll-out of fibre as a result of being too far from the nearest telephone exchange.

They raised around £6,000 locally towards the scheme, which in turn helped them to secure £53,000 additional funding from the UK Government’s Rural Community Broadband Fund, £26,000 from the Prince’s Countryside Fund, a further £2,000 from the Holehird Trust and £1,000 from TalkTalk Digital Heroes.

BT provided extensive network materials and manpower for the project.

The 15 kilometres of fibre linking 58 premises, including 28 businesses, was laid using a pioneering technique trialled by BT and known as ‘mole ploughing’.

Mini diggers perform the dual task of drilling and pulling through the new fibre optic cable more quickly thantraditional methods.

Delighted early customer Paul Bonsall, who runs the Fat Lamb Country Inn, said: “We’ve gone from about 2Mbps to around 60Mbps, which is fantastic.

"We have 12 rooms here and guests expect to have a good wifi connection. They want to be able to upload images of their holidays straight away on social media to show their friends and family what they have been doing. Now we have enough bandwidth to keep everyone happy all of the time.”

Fellow early adopter Stephen Morris, who runs sign-writing business Raven Graphics, added: “Before we were often struggling with as little as half a meg, sometimes it could take half a minute just to download a webpage.

“My job involves uploading and downloading a lot of big graphic files for customers. With fibre I can send them in a matter of seconds – it’s absolutely staggering.”

Cumbria County Councillor and community broadband pioneer Libby Bateman, said: “It’s been a long journey and this is a staggering achievement for everybody involved. I’m so pleased to hear such great feedback from the residents who are connected and am looking forward to the rest of the network going live shortly.”

Penrith and the Border MP Rory Stewart said: “This is Cumbria showing Britain how broadband can be delivered to the most remote places in the country.”