Remote community digs by hand to install own broadband after internet provider refuses to help

  • Video report by ITV News Correspondent Damon Green

A rural community has taken matters into its own hands after internet providers refused to install broadband - because the area is "too remote".

Villagers in Killington, Cumbria, clubbed together using hand and digger to bury hundreds of metres of broadband fibre underground after BT refused to connect them.

Up to 5% of the UK's population is believed to have little or no access to broadband.

Big providers have no financial incentive to supply it because many households are so remote and connections cost a fortune.

But now villagers in Killington boast top quality internet speeds after days of installing cables themselves.

Locals were left stumped after big internet providers installed telephone lines but refused to help with broadband.

It took a non-profit community organisation to change things, believing that access to good broadband is as essential to modern life as clean water and electricity.

Villagers then spent days burying hundreds of metres of plastic pipe under the ground before pushing broadband fibre through it.

The task required help from dozens of people and even the use of a digger.

Now the community boasts of high-connection internet speeds thanks to its own perseverance.