A RURAL Ceredigion community is celebrating after over 200 homes were connected to superfast fibre broadband.

Following years of campaigning, the community of Mydroilyn now has some of the fastest internet speeds in the UK after Openreach engineers connected them to the network.

230 homes in total now have superfast or ultrafast broadband thanks to community campaigners who were given support by local politicians.

Cardigan county councillor and Ceredigion’s Thriving Communities Committee and Digital Champion, Clive Davies, visited the community along with MP Ben Lake last week following a successful campaign.

Cllr Davies said: “Thank you for the warm welcome on a chilly day , we finally got there with enabling Mydroilyn for superfast fibre Broadband.

230 properties now enabled for superfast and ultrafast fibre.

It wouldn’t have been possible without the groundswell of support from the community and the drive of Jonathon and Yvonne Holder.

Thanks also to Ben Lake and Elin Jones in co-ordinating regular meetings with Openreach who were the supplier for this project and Cllr. Bryan Gareth Davies who discussed it at the outset in one of his surgeries.”

Jonathon and Yvonne Holder, who run an antiques business in the village were the driving force behind the campaign, said: “The achievement of securing Ultrafast Fibre Broadband for every property in the Mydroilyn catchment (and a few beyond) is the result of a fantastic joint effort (Elin Jones included), it has been a real pleasure to work with them all and hope that it will have a positive impact on community for many years to come.

“The efforts of our work and its resulting successes did not go unnoticed and lead to Ceredigion being one of the first UK counties to be included in a new UK Government Campaign called the Broadband Upgrade Fund. “A new pilot campaign that went live on 27 July 2020. “The Campaign removed Openreach from their Monopolising position over fibre broadband provision allowing Third Party Companies to quote for work. “This Campaign has led to many other villages and communities across Ceredigion being supplied with Fibre Broadband, including Talgarreg, Llanrhystyd and many more.”

A spokesperson for Openreach said: “Getting ultrafast fibre broadband to Mydroilyn has been a complex and challenging build but we’re delighted that residents will now be able to benefit from some of the fastest and most reliable speeds available thanks to our network.”

“Our local engineers have worked incredibly hard to connect Mydroilyn with ultrafast broadband and that underlines out commitment to building our network as far and wide as possible across Wales.”

Other communities hoping to connect to higher speed internet are encouraged to visit a dedicated website set up by Ceredigion County Council. For more information visit www.ceredigion.gov.uk/business/ceredigital/