Salmon company gives boost to Highland broadband
THE connectivity of the communities in and around the Sutherland village of Scourie is to be transformed by the installation of free wireless broadband for all local residents.
Loch Duart, the independent Scottish salmon farm, which is based in the village, has awarded £14,400 from a local community fund to Scourie Community Development Company for brand new wireless broadband services, which will be provided through Highland Wireless.
The funding is being provided from the ‘Salmon Pool Fund’, a partnership between Loch Duart and their feed supplier Cargill Aqua Nutrition. The initiative offers funding to charities and projects which benefit local communities in the areas where Loch Duart farms across Sutherland and the Outer Hebrides.
Mark Warrington, Managing Director of Loch Duart, said:
As a business which works in isolated communities across the Highlands and Islands, we know how vital it is for people to be connected.We are proud to be able to help connect these communities through the Salmon Pool Fund which we manage with Cargill Aqua Nutrition.This funding will ensure people living in Scourie and the surrounding areas can, for the first time, access high speed internet as fibre services currently do not reach them.’
A recent Ofcom report showed that not all premises in rural locations can get fixed broadband speeds of at least 30 Mbit/s. For example, in the Scottish Highlands 20% of households still lack this level of access.
Helen Houston Development Manager of the Scourie Community Development Company Ltd which manages the project, said:
Being connected is so important to the people who live in and around Scourie and it has become even more important during the COVID-19 pandemic.We applied to the Salmon Pool Fund because so many people in our community still have very poor broadband, or none at all.We are thrilled to be receiving £14,400 from the fund and look forward to rolling out this new service later this year.We’d like to give a huge thank you to Loch Duart and Cargill Aqua Nutrition for making this possible.’
Loch Duart currently produces 6,000 tonnes of high quality salmon each year from its farms in Sutherland and the Outer Hebrides and employs 100 people.