97 per cent of Shropshire homes to have superfast access by 2020

Councillor Nic Laurens, the authority's cabinet member for economic growth, said the figure should be reached if companies fulfil their "commercial obligations".

It comes after figures released by independent advice website thinkbroadband.com, stated that only 81.8 per cent of homes in the Shropshire Council area currently have superfast access.

The figure falls to 77.9 per cent for Powys, although 97.1 per cent of homes in the Telford & Wrekin Council area can obtain superfast broadband.

The statistics were released as the government claimed victory in its bid to provide 95 per cent of all homes in the country with the superfast capability.

Mr Laurens said he believed Shropshire's figure is currently higher than stated, because the analysis did not include fixed wireless connections.

He said: "The 95 per cent figure reported by the government is a national average and is misrepresentative for the Shropshire Council area.

"Using the government’s data source, which only uses BT and Virgin statistics and disappointingly excludes fixed wireless broadband, the comparable figure for the Council area is 82 per cent.

"We believe a more accurate figure taking into account superfast fixed wireless broadband, which is available to over 25,000 premises in the Shropshire Council area, the figure is closer to 90 per cent."

Councillor Laurens said that the council's contracts through Connecting Shropshire had provided access for thousands of homes and that he expects the project to hit the 97 per cent mark by 2020.

He said: "Since 2013, we have put over 58,000 premises within reach of a superfast broadband connection through these contracts. We have a further 16,000 premises to cover by 2020, by which time we expect the percentage of premises in the Shropshire Council area that can access a superfast broadband connection will rise from 90 per cent to 97 per cent, assuming that all providers complete their current commercial obligations."

Councillor Laurens said that more money is available to complete the council's aim of providing all its premises with access to superfast broadband.

He added: "We are currently working to address the final projected gaps."

Earlier this week the government said its £1.7 billion roll-out to reach the 95 per cent figure had created 50,000 new jobs and generated an extra £8.9bn in turnover in the economies of the areas, which benefited between 2013 and 2016.

According to thinkbroadband.com, speeds of 24mbps or faster are available to around 27.5 million out of 28.9 million premises in the UK.

In England 95.5 per cent of properties can now get those speeds, while the figure dips to 94.2 per cent in Wales, 93.4 per cent in Scotland and 86.7 per cent in Northern Ireland, the thinkbroadband.com data shows.