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Guy Opperman MP slams delay in Northumberland broadband bid
Northumberland County Council chose not to apply for a chunk of £50 million of government money to improve broadband services.
The county council chose not to submit an application to become one of the government's pilot areas, instead choosing to continue working on the project ahead of submission later this year, reports the Journal.
It meant Northumberland was never in the running to receive a chunk of the £50 million of public money made available to Devon and Somerset, Norfolk and Wiltshire to improve their broadband infrastructure.
Hexham MP Guy Opperman has responded angrily to the news of inaction from the Liberal Democrat-run Northumberland County Council.
Describing the administration's decision not to apply for funding as "shocking", the Conservative politician said the local authority is failing to match up to the efforts made by north-west MPs to bring faster broadband to the area.
"We have been campaigning in Westminster on behalf of people locally and to find that the council failed even to apply is beyond incompetence," Mr Opperman said.
"It's not very often in these tough times that money is made available and here we see the council, either through bad direction or incompetence, effectively turning it down."
However, executive member of the council Roger Styring backed the move not to apply for pilot site status and promised that a full bid will be submitted in autumn.
"We felt there was no point in putting in half a bid," the Liberal Democrat commented.
By July, Broadband Delivery UK is set to decide on the levels of broadband funding available to every local authority across the country.
As well as the four counties awarded money in the latest round of announcements, a further four locations - the highlands and islands, North Yorkshire, Cumbria and Herefordshire - were named as trial sites towards the end of 2010.