Sir, – In last week’s editorial you made some sweeping comments about the rollout of broadband in rural areas such as North Yorkshire.

While your source material, namely the recent report of the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), is clearly unimpeachable, it does not reflect the true position in North Yorkshire.

The Superfast North Yorkshire (SFNY) project is the leading project in rollout terms in the country. More than 110,000 properties now have access to at least 25 mbps and by this autumn that will have risen to 150,000, which taken together with the properties being enabled by BT/Virgin of their own accord will mean that approximately 90 per cent of North Yorkshire premises will have access to superfast broadband by the end of this year. Furthermore, North Yorkshire County Council has just approved a further £8m package that will push the coverage to 93 per cent with a further phase to come in 2015.

You are quite correct to point out that for many people in rural areas broadband is becoming an essential utility and it is for this reason that SFNY has also been actively promoting community based wireless projects in those areas that are unlikely to get BT’s fibre based service.

One of the key things that SFNY has done to try to address the question ‘‘Am I going to get broadband?’’ is to publish detailed maps on its website. These maps are as accurate as they can be given the logistical and engineering challenge of upgrading more than 650 cabinets spread over the large area that is North Yorkshire.

The PAC wants maps to be published based on seven-digit postcodes, but these do not give an accurate picture of broadband coverage, which is why the SFNY maps are based on individual cabinets.

Many of your readers will have attended one of the dozens of local meetings that the SFNY Team have presented over the past year or so and will continue to do so as we move into the next phase of the rollout. We also continue to meet with, and support, the local wireless projects that themselves provide an excellent service to several thousand properties in the most rural parts of the county.

The ambition is to secure access to superfast broadband for all properties in North Yorkshire. We are well on the way to achieving this but are not complacent about the challenge it represents. The website www.

superfastnorthyorkshire.com contains full details of our plans and how to contact us if a community wishes to invite us to a public meeting to explain further.

JOHN MOORE Chief executive, Superfast North Yorkshire