High-speed fibre broadband is now available to more than 3,000 homes and businesses in and around Wigton and Aspatria.

Engineers from Openreach – BT’s local network business – have switched on another 12 fibre broadband roadside cabinets allowing 900 more premises to access the high-speed service.

The first cabinet in Wigton was installed in autumn 2014. The latest are in surrounding villages such as Baggrow, Plumbland, Harriston, Bothel, Westnewton and Gilcrux.

The roll out is part of the Connecting Cumbria project – a partnership between Cumbria County Council and BT – which has seen 550 fibre broadband cabinets installed benefiting 120,000 households and businesses.

One business enjoying the benefits of having fibre is family-run Jacksons Models, in New Street, Wigton, which specialises in the sale of diecast models to collectors around the world.

Brenda Jackson, who runs the shop with son Daniel, said having high-speed broadband had slashed the time taken to upload new data to their website and boosted their in-house payment system.

Mrs Jackson, who signed up to a superfast service in October last year, said: “We upload changes to our website overnight – things like new price listings, new photos and details of items for sale.

“Before the upgrade, we would open up the next morning to discover errors or images missing on the website where they hadn’t uploaded properly because the broadband signal had dropped out.

“Now we don’t have to worry about any of that."

David Southward, the county council cabinet member for economic development, said: “It is reassuring to see Connecting Cumbria reaching homes and businesses in communities however small or remote they may be.

“It reflects our ultimate goal, which is to provide every resident, business, organisation and visitor with access to superfast fibre broadband.”

When an area has gone ‘live’ for fibre, people need to contact their service provider to upgrade as it does not happen automatically. Because the network is ‘open’, they have a wide choice of fibre broadband providers.