Work has already started in the first five local communities to benefit from the ambitious, multi-million pound project to roll-out faster broadband available throughout the county.

Engineers are now planning and building the new fibre network in Much Marcle, Ross, Symonds Yat, Upton Bishop, and St Weonards.

To date most of the work has been 'behind the scenes' – lots of planning and surveying.

In the coming weeks and months people will see Openreach engineers out and about installing new street-side cabinets and then connecting them to the new fibre network.

Around 10,000 homes and businesses will have access to faster broadband once the new network is complete in these towns and villages, with the first customers expected to be connected during the autumn.

The newly named 'Fastershire' project will involve hundreds of engineers working for BT's local network business Openreach, laying 2,500 kilometres of optical fibre cable and installing around 800 new fibre broadband cabinets throughout the

Herefordshire and Gloucestershire project area.

The deal between the two councils and BT should enable 90 per cent of homes and businesses to have access to fibre broadband by the end of 2016. The councils' ultimate target is to provide access to broadband speeds of 24 megabits per second (Mbps) or above for all who want it by 2018 with speeds of up to 80Mbps being typical. Small businesses will also have access to speeds of up to 330Mbps through BT's fibre on demand service which starts to become available during this spring.

In addition, the £56.6 million project intends to address those premises across both counties receiving a connection of less than 2Mbps by aiming to ensure all areas receive that speed as a minimum by the end of 2016.

Councillor Graham Powell, Cabinet Member for Education and Infrastructure, Herefordshire Council, said: "It's great to see this project getting off the ground by announcing the first communities that will benefit from faster broadband in Herefordshire. More detailed information on the roll-out will also be available at the new website, http://www.fastershire.com">www.fastershire.com.

For more stories in full please see this week's Ross Gazette.