The government has yet to deliver on its promises to supply four pilot areas in Britain with super fast broadband. The government has been accused of allowing a ‘digital divide’ between town and country to widen unless it steps up plans to roll out broadband in four pilot locations.

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Last year, Chancellor George Osborne named Cumbria, Herefordshire, North Yorkshire and the Highlands and Islands, as pilot areas for rural superfast broadband networks.

However, a freedom of information request submitted by the Countryside Alliance in October this year revealed that work has not yet begun on any of the four pilot areas. When questioned, some local councils admitted that they have not yet received any money or started work on their broadband projects, while others were only just beginning to source suppliers to install the networks.

Alice Barnard, Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, commented on the revelations, "As the responses from the pilot councils show, local authorities are struggling to turn Whitehall’s promises into reality. It has been over a year since these pilots were set up and the people who live in areas with no or unreliable broadband coverage haven’t seen any improvement. Unless more is done to simplify the process of acquiring and implementing rural broadband projects, the digital divide will continue to grow and the money pledged by the Coalition will remain all but worthless."

A government spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport assured that the money for the broadband projects would be provided when local councils began spending on their projects and assured that Britain remained on track towards having Europe’s best broadband network by 2015.

However, according to the BBC, the bidding process is becoming increasingly convoluted. It reported that several of the companies involved in bidding for the have pulled out citing concerns with the process and said industry insiders lacked confidence that the government could deliver on its plans to provide the best broadband network in Europe by 2015.

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