HATHERLEIGH residents have acted quickly to secure high speed internet access for the town.
Hatherleigh has now reached the trigger level of 250 expressions of interest at which BT will upgrade the telephone exchange to Broadband.
This success has been achieved remarkably quickly. When a meeting was held in the town on February 2, the number of registrations with BT stood at just 87!
Much of this success in finding more than 160 possible users has been due to the dedication of enthusiast Gavin Brooks, who has been out knocking on doors in the town in the last fortnight drumming up interest in the campaign.
Mr Brooks, a retained firefighter, registered his interest in Broadband as a home user, but said the response from business in Hatherleigh was fantastic.
'I was frustrated at being restricted by the slow connection, so I decided the best approach was to go round to people's houses and I had a really good response,' he said.
Mr Brooks expected BT to announce a date for Hatherleigh to be Broad-band-enabled in the next two to three weeks. It is expected the actual upgrade will take place sometime this summer.
The meeting held earlier this month was well attended, with between 30 and 40 new registrations coming forward as a result. A representative from the Broadband4Devon campaign was at the meeting to outline to businesses how they could receive financial support to become Broadband-enabled.
Broadband offers 'always on' internet connections much faster than a standard modem, allowing large files and graphics to be downloaded much quicker.
You can still visit the website http://www.bb4hatherleigh.org.uk">www.bb4hatherleigh.org.uk and register an interest in the service. The website was set up to enable residents to find out more about broadband.