Businesses in Cumbria can look forward to having faster broadband.

Openreach has announced that more than 100,000 premises across the UK are now part of its Community Fibre Partnership scheme – including 400 in Cumbria.

They include premises in the Longtown, Penrith and Kentmere areas.

The scheme involves the company splitting the cost of installing faster broadband with the local community.

Robert Thorburn, Openreach’s partnership director for the North, said:

“There are several very small, rural communities across Cumbria delighted to have fast broadband speeds, despite living in some of the most rural areas.

"It builds on the work we’re already doing ourselves, and in partnership with our council partners across the region.

"There are many advantages of faster speeds, for both home users and businesses, and I’d strongly urge everyone to check if they live in a fibre-enabled area, and if so, get in touch with their broadband provider to find out more about upgrading."

Openreach is using a mix of technologies to deliver the CFP programme, but primarily the latest ultrafast fibre-to-the-premises technology providing broadband speeds of up to 1Gbps.

This provides enough bandwidth for a family of four to all stream ultra HD or 4k quality movies or TV simultaneously, without waiting or buffering.

Once Openreach has installed the infrastructure, people can place an order for the new faster services with a provider of their choice.

Kim Mears, managing director of strategic infrastructure development for Openreach, said: “There are many examples across Cumbria, and the wider region, of how Openreach’s UK-wide Community Fibre Partnership programme is bringing fibre broadband to some of the UK’s most challenging areas where broadband providers struggle to upgrade alone.

“Our ambition is to ‘never say no’ to any community that wants fibre broadband connectivity – we’ll work with any community to find a way forward and we hope that this scheme will encourage even more communities to work with us.”