Fears that Shropshire broadband funding will be lost

Shropshire Council was awarded £11.38 million by Broadband Delivery UK, the Government project for broadband, at the end of February.

But the money will only be handed over if the council can provide match-funding for the scheme – and bosses face losing the cash altogether if they cannot do it by the end of June.

The council has been working with pressure group the Shropshire and Marches Campaign for Better Broadband to raise the cash to improve speeds.

But Patrick Cosgrove, spokesman for the campaign group, said they had so far hit a brick wall.

He said the group had written to Sajid Javid and Ed Vaisey, ministers at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, asking them to relax the timescale or even remove the matching requirement.

But he conceded the prospect of losing the cash was very real – and called on the Government to take action or face an "absolute outrage" from the people of the county.

Parts of Shropshire suffer from poor broadband coverage, with Alveley, near Bridgnorth named as having one of the slowest connections in the country.

But, Mr Cosgrove asked: "How do you find £11.38 million matching money by the end of June? The quick answer is with the greatest of difficulty.

"Of course it's great that Shropshire has been awarded £11.38 million of the Superfast Extension Programme because it desperately needs it.

"It is also lunacy that we can only draw down however much we can match.

"Shropshire is clearly not alone in urgently needing to extend its current roll-out programme, but many other counties are far better off.

"Suffolk has already committed to matching its allocation of £4.82 million from reserves.

"Hampshire County Council's website tells us that they have been allocated £7.69m but have up to £9.2m available from reserves for matching.

"Meanwhile in Shropshire we are scrabbling for small sums of money that are unlikely to amount to very much."