RYEDALE’S MP Kevin Hollinrake has welcomed the news that rural parts of North Yorkshire will get an £11 million boost to broadband infrastructure.

The funding is part of £45m that will come from central Government’s rural broadband infrastructure scheme.

The money will go towards improving infrastructure, which is costly in sparsely populated and often hard-to-reach areas.

The Rural Affairs Minister, Lord Gardiner, who visited the North York Moors National Park to make the announcement, said: “Rural areas should not be left behind in the connectivity slow lane, missing out on the opportunities high speed broadband can bring.”

Mr Hollinrake agreed, saying: “Our businesses, schools and households deserve as fast a speed as those in suburban and inner-city areas.

“With Thirsk and Malton ranked 528th out of 650 constituencies in the country for average download speed, I was delighted to support the excellent bid that had been submitted by Superfast North Yorkshire, the broadband delivery vehicle of North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC).”

The £11m North Yorkshire will receive is part of planned investment of at least £3.5 billion into rural economies by 2020, supporting the quarter of businesses in the UK which are based in the countryside.

County Cllr Don Mackenzie said: “High-quality digital infrastructure is essential for business success, for the needs of households, for education and for health and social care. It is why NYCC prioritises excellent broadband provision and also improvements in 4G mobile phone coverage.

“The county council also bid for, and was successful in winning from the Government, £15.1m to develop a series of Local Full Fibre Networks based on 391 public buildings in the county.”