A new agreement between the Country Land & Business Association (CLA) and the National Farmers' Union (NFU) has been finalised, which has been praised for narrowing the digital divide facing rural areas.

Private or not-for-profit companies looking to install the infrastructure needed for community broadband in the countryside will now be able to work with farmers and landowners.

This comes as a direct result of the new package of advisory wayleave payment rates and terms.

It is hoped that this will help the government to achieve its aim of rolling out super-fast broadband to rural and remote areas, where the business case may have been weak in the past.

Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, welcomed this development.

"It will go a long way to making our rollout of rural broadband cheaper and quicker by reducing the cost and time taken in negotiating individual land access agreements," he commented.

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