Cumbria ultra-fast broadband work gets under way

Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Michelle Donelan, said the scheme would transform connectivity in Cumbria

Work is under way to give 60,000 homes and businesses in remote parts of Cumbria access to ultra-fast broadband.

The government said the £108m project would benefit properties "from Grasmere to Gilsland and Buttermere to Beckermet" by 2026.

More than 99% of the county would be connected to gigabit technology once work was completed, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Michelle Donelan, told the BBC.

It is part of a £5bn national rollout.

Ms Donelan said: "Cumbria is going to be the most-connected region in the UK. Sixty-thousand [properties] is the government investment, commercial companies have been doing the easier bits.

"It's a rolling project. They'll be doing it as quickly as they can to get homes and business connected to gigabit, which is more reliable and can cope with multiple devices and support businesses."

The contract for the project in the county has been awarded to Belfast-based supplier Fibrus.

Installation work had started and the first gigabit connections were expected by the spring, the DCMS said.

Additionally, it has been announced a mountain rescue base at Wasdale Head in the Lake District will be one of three remote area's taking part in a government trial featuring Elon Musk's Starlink, which uses satellites to beam a broadband signal down to Earth.

Rievaulx Abbey, in North Yorkshire Moors National Park, and two sites within Snowdonia National Park will also feature in the scheme.

The DCMS said recent tests showed that in many locations Starlink satellites could deliver internet speeds of up to 200 megabits per second - four times faster than the current UK average broadband speed of just over 50Mbps.