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People living on the fringes of the city are feeling increasingly "left behind" by internet providers who are failing to hook them up to the high-speed grid. In the last several years broadband firm Openreach, a subsidiary of BT, has laid thousands of new lines of fibre-optic cable to rural villages near Norwich - but not all of them. Areas in places such as Mulbarton are being left out of the roll-out, which has left locals feeling abandoned and cut off.
Parts of Mulbarton are missing out on high-speed internet, according to local Nick Headland (Image: Newsquest) Yesmere man Nick Headland, 54, said hundreds of people in Mulbarton have missed out on getting high-speed internet connected to their homes. "The frustration is that Openreach visited the village in 2022 and upgraded some of the estates to Fibre To The Property (FTTP), but didn't upgrade other estates," he said. READ MORE: Mum in three-year battle to get heating fixed in her new build home "Several hundred properties around Catmere Herne, Lark Rise and Southern Reach were missed and Openreach says they have no plans to return to the area.
"My suspicion is that they marked the village as complete while only upgrading a portion of it and chose to service the easier-to-reach areas." Nick is frustrated that Openreach will not be returning to hook up the parts of Mulbarton it missed (Image: Nick Headland) This prompted Mr Headland to contact Ben Goldsborough, MP for South Norfolk, to ask for help. Mr Goldsborough said: " Residents are rightly infuriated by the slow roll-out of superfast broadband.
READ MORE: Hopes junction onto busy road will be made safer after MP backs redesign "Last month I secured a meeting with BT to put across my shared concerns that we are being left behind. "I'll continue to bang the drum for our villages and encourage residents to get in contact if they are struggling to get the decent broadband speed or mobile reception which is needed as a basic in modern life." Ben Goldsborough MP (left) has since stepped in to help (Image: Ben Goldsborough) Openreach has been approached for comment.
The UK Government announced in the autumn budget that up to £500m will be spent on improving broadband speeds and mobile coverage in rural areas over the next several years. It comes as part of the £5 billion "project gigabit" which aims to bring fast internet and 5G connections to 99pc of the country by 2030..
