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09
Aug 2023
Masham and Fountains councillor Felicity Cunliffe-Lister has written to the government urging it to help rural areas without broadband get connected.
About 300 homes in Masham and Fountains — about nine per cent of the total — are without fibre optic broadband to their premises.
A meeting organised by Cllr Lister last month heard this number might not reduce for several years.
This has prompted her to write to science, innovation and technology secretary Michelle Donelan asking her to bring back a voucher scheme that enabled people to install their own gigabit-capable connections at reduced cost.
Cllr Cunliffe-Lister, a Liberal Democrat who was elected to North Yorkshire Council this year, said in her letter:
Cllr Cunliffe-Lister said the roll out of broadband had been effective in urban locations in North Yorkshire but "rural residents will be feeling more remote and isolated than ever before".
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