STICKLEPATH and Moretonhampstead have been announced as two of the first communities to benefit from the major £94 million Connecting Devon and Somerset super-fast broadband partnership.

High-speed fibre optic broadband will become available at Sticklepath, Moretonhampstead and five other communities in the region by the end of this year. Construction work for Sticklepath has started three months early.

By early 2014, this first phase of the programme is due to have made the high-speed technology available to at least 15,000 homes and businesses in these communities.

Cllr Andrew Leadbetter, cabinet member for economy and growth for Devon County Council, said: 'Today's announcement from Connecting Devon and Somerset is terrific news for these communities and shows that the programme is on its way.

'As the largest publicly funded fibre broadband roll out of its kind in England, the project is a massive engineering challenge. It will boost our businesses and make our area more attractive for inward investment and business development, encouraging companies to relocate while creating new jobs.

'It will transform both our competitiveness and our communities as they enjoy all the benefit that high-speed fibre broadband can bring. We are particularly delighted that the Government has announced it is making a further £250 million available to increase fibre broadband coverage to 95 per cent of the UK population by 2017. This is great news, especially for rural communities.'

The Connecting Devon and Somerset programme will lead to the delivery of high-speed fibre broadband to around 90% of premises in Devon and Somerset by the end of 2016. It also plans to ensure a minimum of 2 megabits per second for all premises within the programme and is actively seeking more funding to further extend the availability of superfast broadband across the whole area.

Since the partnership was announced earlier this year engineers have been busy surveying the network in order to ensure that the roll-out of the new technology is carried out in the most cost effective and efficient manner. It is estimated that about 400,000 kilometres of optical fibre will need to be laid.

As the largest project of its kind in England, the project has attracted £32 million of funding from the government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme. Further financial contributions include £10 million each from Devon and Somerset County Councils and £41 million from BT as well as funding from other public sector partners.