Whitchurch’s MP Owen Paterson has praised the collaborative working approach which has enabled hundreds more businesses and residents in Whitchurch to get faster fibre broadband.

The North Shropshire MP has been working with the community and Openreach to set up the new broadband throughout the High Street.

Mr Paterson was delighted the parties could work together to find a solution to locating the new cabinets.

“Finding the right location for the two new fibre broadband cabinets was proving particularly difficult because of the amount of street furniture in this part of the town centre,” said Mr Paterson.

“By working together, Openreach and local people were able to come up with a solution and the installation work was completed by the engineers for the benefit of the community.”

Clive Selley, Openreach’s chief executive, joined Mr Paterson, Councillor Tony Neville, the Mayor of Whitchurch, as well as Nic Laurens, Peggy Mullock and Tom Biggins from Shropshire Council.

“Every day we’re seeing how fibre broadband technology is changing people’s lives for the better, which is why we’re working hard to ensure more households and businesses have access to it – in Shropshire and elsewhere,” said Mr Selley.

“It’s been great to visit Shropshire again and to witness first-hand the tremendous progress being made and to see how we might be able to work together to help extend the reach of this vital technology still further.”

Now around 450 more premises in the centre of Whitchurch are able to upgrade, with some already reaping the benefits of faster download and upload speeds.

The upgrade work is part of Openreach’s £11 billion investment in its open wholesale broadband network. People need to contact their service providers to order the faster services now available.

Will Weston, who runs Galaxy Computer Services in High Street, couldn’t wait for his superfast fibre upgrade.

He said: “Having high-speed broadband is absolutely vital for a business like ours. Because of the services we provide, we can be working on as many as 10 computers at any one time, so downloading can be really slow.

“We hope getting superfast fibre broadband will make us more productive and efficient and help us to provide an even better service for our customers.”