SUPERFAST broadband is being rolled out to more rural locations across East Lancashire, connecting communities and boosting business.

The scheme has now delivered more than 500 fibre broadband street cabinets across the county as part of a technology revolution.

And the latest village to benefit from the Superfast Lancashire Project - which aims to make fibre broadband available to 97 per cent of Lancashire households and businesses - is Slaidburn in the Ribble Valley.

Landlady Victoria Wood, who owns the Hark to Bounty Inn, who has already started using fibre broadband at her home, has no doubts about the benefits brought by the new network.

Victoria, who has lived in the village for 10 years and runs the pub with her partner, Nicholas Hey, said: “What would it be like in a house with a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old without the internet? Meltdown. It would be an absolute nightmare. Now with the fast speeds we can stream videos and programmes without them coming to a halt every few minutes. If Sarah and Barton are not on YouTube, they are on the X Box. I ordered fibre broadband as soon as it arrived in the village.”

Steve Edwards, BT’s director of Next Generation Access, said: “Fibre broadband brings together, and connects, communities in rural Lancashire. It is crucial to village businesses, for those who work from home and for family entertainment. Engineers from BT’s local network business, Openreach, have worked hard in some very difficult and challenging conditions to bring this technology to villages like Slaidburn, which would not have benefitted from superfast broadband without the Superfast Lancashire partnership.”

Lancashire County Councillor Sean Serridge, champion for Digital Inclusion, said: "Reaching 500 live cabinets is a major engineering achievement and demonstrates Superfast Lancashire's progress in making access to fibre broadband a reality for thousands more Lancashire's homes and businesses. I'm sure that the people of Slaidburn are looking forward to enjoying the benefits that this technology will bring."

Superfast Lancashire has now commissioned more than 500 of the 900 fibre broadband roadside cabinets it is installing across the county. It is running alongside BT’s own commercial rollout of the technology.

Superfast Lancashire is a partnership between Lancashire County Council and BT, with additional funding from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK, as well as the European Regional Development Fund, Blackburn with Darwen Council and Blackpool Council.