North East Lincolnshire UK Campaign Calls for More Broadband Investment

One Voice, a Community Engagement Group that works with the communities of Immingham, Habrough and Stallingborough in North East Lincolnshire UK, have launched a new campaign for better broadband after fears were raised that the additional funding from central government would not be enough to do the job properly.

The campaign, which claims to have “received a mass of support from residents, businesses, the local authority and other organisations“, informs ISPreview.co.uk that local authorities expect to see an investment of £11 million within the North Lincolnshire area. But just 9% of that (£900,000) is set to be spent in North East Lincolnshire.

The related Local Broadband Plan (LBP) estimates that this will only benefit 728 homes and businesses, which is apparently less than the number of premises in Stallingborough and Habrough alone.

Thomas Horton, One Voice Campaigner, said:

“We are getting a raw end of the deal. We accept that average speeds are higher in North East Lincolnshire compared to North Lincolnshire but this does not mean that everyone is able to access the minimum of 2Mbps.

We have residents that have to go to college hours earlier to complete coursework, residents that are unable to access work emails, hotels that cannot offer Wi-Fi to international guests. It is ridiculous that in 2012, people are receiving 0.3Mbps.”

Councillor Darren Billard (Labour) added:

“We just want to see a fairer deal for North East Lincolnshire. Even if these two areas receive the whole of the nine per cent allocated, it still wouldn’t be enough to improve provisions adequately.”

According to Ofcom, the average “modem sync” download speed in Lincolnshire is 6.5Mbps (Megabits per second) and 17.2% receive less than 2Mbps. Superfast broadband is currently only available to 23% of properties. By contrast 12% of premises in North Lincolnshire get less than 2Mbps, which drops to just 2% for North East Lincolnshire specifically. Ideally the northern area would like to bring speeds of 30Mbps to 100% of customers.