Last updated at 11:01, Friday, 21 September 2012

BUSINESS leaders have launched a rallying call in a bid to bring superfast broadband to Ulverston.

Despite being named as one of Google’s top 20 rural digital trailblazers earlier this year, the town has been snubbed by a BT bid to provide superfast broadband in Cumbria.

Now, members of Ulverston Business Alliance have urged businesses and web users to back their calls for a BT summit to help improve broadband in the area.

Google shortlisted the rural communities with the highest online economic activity, and then ranked them in terms of the percentage increase in local enterprises using AdWords, an online advertising system, over the last year.

Ulverston was placed ninth on the list of 20 communities towns or villages with a population of 13,000 or less that had seen a huge increase in online economic activity over the last year.

The town saw a 30.4 per cent increase in small and medium-sized enterprises using Google’s AdWords, when comparing May last year with May this year.

The summit, which will be held by the Ulverston Broadband Alliance, which was formed by Ulverston Business Alliance, will aim to press BT to help improve broadband speeds both in the town and the wider Ulverston area.

Paul Jarvis, membership secretary of the Ulverston Business Alliance, said: “Ulverston Broadband Alliance is a campaign lobbying for the Ulverston exchange to be upgraded to superfast broadband status.

“The exchanges at Barrow, Dalton and Newby Bridge have all been upgraded.

“The creative, hi-tech and pharmaceutical industries all need this level of communication to stay competitive. Of course, individual users of the internet would all like improved broadband speeds, particularly the outlying rural areas also served by Ulverston exchange.

“Accepting the status quo of poor broadband connectivity in Ulverston and rural Furness is not an option.

“Everyone must know that the area is not just festivals and cobbled streets but one with ambition for a thriving economy driven by the needs of the people and businesses that live there.

“Broadband, like any other infrastructure such as road and rail, is an essential – not a ‘nice to have’.”

Mr Jarvis urged internet users to either complete a short survey by visiting http://bit.ly/MP91c8 or by signing up to back the campaign online at www.causes.com/actions/1674489.

First published at 16:22, Thursday, 20 September 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk