A FAMILY of key workers on the Ll?n have spoken of their frustration at still being without fibre broadband after more than three years.

Bill and Mandy Hildyard from Llanarmon, Pwllheli, first tried to get the service to their home in 2018.

They contacted MP Liz Saville-Roberts then, and again in 2019, when the service still hadn’t been connected.

The MP contacted Openreach who told her in July 2019 that, within six months, infrastructure would be in place to connect the service, but the Hildyards are still waiting.

Bill said: “My wife and I run her family’s farm, as well as both working full-time for the NHS. l also look after the server and social media for a national charity.

“We contacted Liz Saville-Roberts frustrated at the lack of access to fast broadband. Fibre to the cabinet wasn’t an option as we are too far away. We were surprised to hear we were in scope for fibre and all being well, we’d be able to place an order in no more than six months.

“January slipped to March; March slipped by and the pandemic was upon us. We are both home working for the NHS, and my eldest daughter, a lecturer at Coleg Llandrillo Pwllheli, teaching from home.

“May came and we were told another two to three months. Then we were assured work would be complete by the end of the year, then December slipped to January.”

Bill said: “Just before Christmas we received the ultimate insult. We were now looking at March as they had been updating us about the wrong job! March is here and we have seen a surveyor but allegedly orders have only just been released to the team who have 90 days to complete the work so it looks like we might be able to place an order in June, some two years after we were told six months.”

Mrs Saville Roberts said: “Having been repeatedly assured work to bring fibre broadband to their home was no more than six months away, my constituents are rightly frustrated with the catalogue of broken promises that has resulted in these setbacks.

“Their predicament perfectly illustrates the wider problem of patchy connectivity in my rural constituency, aggravated by a failure on behalf of network providers to stick to agreed deadlines and provide deliverable timescales.

A spokesperson for Openreach said: “We understand Mr and Mrs Hildyard’s frustration and are sorry that it’s taken longer than anticipated to complete the work.

“We would like to confirm that we’ve made it clear to our contractors that connecting the Hildyard’s home, along with the surrounding properties, needs to be prioritised.

“Our engineers have been working hard throughout Covid as key-workers to help build field hospitals and vaccination centres while keeping Gwynedd and the rest of the country connected. We’ve also continued to invest in the network during the pandemic using our own money to build our full-fibre network. As of today nearly 90 per cent of Gwynedd can place an order for fibre broadband as a result of our work but we realise there’s more to do and look forward to working with Liz Saville Roberts MP to address the concerns of her constituents.”