Barrow is among a number of Cumbrian towns and villages which will receive full fibre broadband as part of a major programme of upgrades.

Open reach said "ultra-reliable and gigabit-capable full fibre broadband" will be made available to homes and businesses in Barrow, Dalton, Walney, Millom and Kendal.

Penrith, Harrington and Workington will also benefit.

Work is expected to get under way in many of the locations within the next 12 to18 months, although some places will see work continue into 2024.

Full fibre connections run fibre all the way to homes and businesses, rather than to a cabinet in the street which then connects via copper cables.

Full fibre connections are capable of download and upload speeds of over one gigabit per second.

Robert Thorburn, Openreach’s partnership director in the north of England, said: “We’ve already upgraded hundreds of thousands of homes and business across the North West to full fibre.

"As well as keeping the existing network running throughout the Covid crisis, our engineers have safely and with social distancing in place, continued building the new infrastructure to make sure that as lockdown restrictions ease, our network is there to support families, businesses and the economic recovery.

“I’d encourage everyone to check if they can switch to the new technology, and if you can, get in touch with your broadband provider to find out more about the many benefits. Full fibre is more reliable and more resilient meaning fewer faults and more predictable, consistent speeds. It is also future-proof to easily meet the growing data demands of future technologies."

The work is part of a wider £12 billion project to install full fibre infrastructure to 20 million premises throughout the UK by the mid-to-late 2020s.