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Since November last year, the Council-led iNorthumberland campaign has asked every resident and business across the county to throw their support behind the project. With compelling evidence of demand throughout the area, the project team hopes to secure more funding and encourage the market to step in to help the county’s most isolated homes and businesses.
John Cooper, community engagement officer said: “Since last autumn, we have distributed more than 20,000 registration postcards throughout the county’s libraries and customer service centres. We’ve spoken at many events, written to the parents of every school-aged child and worked with local people to deliver leaflets into many homes.
“10,000 is a great number for us to hit. This is the total number of individual properties we have registered support from, but if we counted the number of individual people who have got behind the campaign, the number would be far higher.”
The total number of registrations represents 12% of all the premises in Northumberland. The focus is on the number of individual premises because this is the number that the commercial providers will look at when they prepare their business case to bring faster connections to the county.
John added: “We may have hit this number, but we still have a way to go to reach more and more people. We have recently launched a campaign aimed at businesses throughout the county, and we’re looking to recruit a network of voluntary digital champions who can focus the campaign on a local level.
“Where we have seen the strongest support, we have been able to link it back to one of two passionate locals who have helped promote our campaign. People have really got behind iNorthumberland and there can be no doubt that Northumberland wants superfast broadband connections.”
If you would like more information on the campaign, or if you are interested in becoming a digital champion and securing support in your local area, please visit www.inorthumberland.org.uk or telephone John Cooper on 01670 623415.
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