THREE more South Gloucestershire villages are to have their internet speeds boosted with the introduction of superfast broadband.

Villagers in Charfield, Rangeworthy and Wickwar will be able to order fibre broadband services by the summer.

This is part of a multi-million pound superfast broadband partnership between South Gloucestershire Council, Wiltshire Council and BT.

This government initiative, administered by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), seeks to roll out fibre broadband to more rural areas that are not deemed commercially viable by the private sector.

Cllr John Goddard, chairman of South Gloucestershire Council’s resources sub-committee, said hewas delighted to announce the new beneficiaries.

He said: “We recognise that high speed internet connections are vital for South Gloucestershire residents as well as our businesses and this is another milestone reached in this large and complex infrastructure project.”

Wick, Pucklechurch, Lower Almondsbury, Olveston, Rudgeway, Tockington, Tormarton and Bradley Stoke were also announced last year as some of the first communities to be included in the partnership’s roll-out plans.

Along with BT’s existing commercial roll out, South Gloucestershire Council claims that 94 per cent of premises in the county will have access to superfast speeds of 24Mbps and above by the end of March 2015.

However, not all of South Gloucestershire’s residents have been so lucky as people living in other villages near Thornbury and Yate look set to get stuck with poor broadband speeds of just 1Mbps for the foreseeable future.

Many villages, such as Elberton, Tytherington and Acton Turville could still miss out on the upgrades.

This is because the out-of-the-way communities are too far from the nearest exchange or roadside ‘"green cabinet" to benefit from higher speeds because they will still receive their service over extended lengths of copper cable, even after the upgrade has taken place.

A group of residents travelled with MP Steve Webb to take their fight against missing out on faster speeds to Westminster.

The group, who fear that living and running businesses in so-called internet blackspots seriously damaged their prospects, lobbied broadband minister Ed Vaizey over the issue at the Houses of Parliament in December.

For more information on the project, which aims to lay nearly 100 kilometres of fibre cabling and install more than 50 new street cabinets, visit www.southglos.gov.uk/broadband