Duddon Valley internet connection to be cut

About 50 people in the Duddon Valley and Branthwaite areas of Cumbria will lose their internet connection in June.

The area was connected in 2008 at a cost of £500,000 given by the now defunct North West Development Agency.

Cable and Wireless said it was withdrawing the service because it was "not commercially viable" without government funding.

The government has pledged that by 2015, 90% of homes in Britain will eventually have access to the internet.

'Terrible waste'

In a statement, Cable and Wireless said: "The government subsidy which was supporting the radio broadband service to the areas has come to an end and the service is not commercially viable without it."

John Batten, a resident of the Duddon Valley, said: "There's a lot of money been spent on this and after four years, to pull the plug on it when there isn't anything else of any quality in place, seems to be a terrible waste of public money.

"There is an option of putting satellite dishes up, although they do have problems, we don't want these big dishes and we don't either want to pay £25 a month for it."

Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border, Rory Stewart, said the current service should never have been given the go-ahead in 2007.

He said: "This is a shocking story. The decision was made five years ago to spend £500,000 on providing service for about 50 houses.

"All this money was spent and it turns out to be completely commercially unviable and therefore can't be sustained.

"We should be able to deliver that kind of service at a tenth of the cost provided government, communities and businesses sort themselves out."