THE areas of Northmoor, Moreton and Bablockhythe will receive a grant of £200,287 towards their own fast broadband project.

The West Oxfordshire villages will not be covered by the county council’s £25m project with BT to bring superfast broadband to most homes in the county, and have been launching a bid to run their own.

Now a Government grant of £200,287 has been approved.

It will be put to use connecting at least 480 homes at Northmoor and hundreds more in surrounding areas.

Northmoor Parish Council chairman Graham Shelton said: “This is a wonderful community achievement that has taken a truly enormous amount of effort from villagers, and from the leader of West Oxfordshire District Council right through to the Prime Minister himself.

“Importantly, we could not have got this far without the fantastic support of our district council, who are now handling the procurement process.

“They recognise, as we do, that with 25 per cent of rural residents working from home or running a business from home, decent broadband is essential. Right now many people can’t even get dial-up where we live.”