Member Article

Digital fortification to boost tourism at Hadrian’s Wall

Twenty-first century superfast broadband has arrived at one of the highest and most remote sections of the famous North East landmark Hadrian’s Wall.

Businesses and households, situated along a remote stretch of the Military Road at Once Brewed, can now get fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) superfast speeds of up to 330Mbps1, thanks to the iNorthumberland broadband programme increasing connectivity speed across the region.

Councillor Dave Ledger, deputy leader of Northumberland County Council, said: “The tourism industry is extremely important to Northumberland, particularly in areas like this right next to the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site.”

One such premises is currently little more than a building site. However, in 2017 it will be transformed into The Sill National Landscape Discovery Centre, a major education centre and visitor attraction, which is predicted to deliver substantial economic benefits with around £5m of additional visitor spending in the region every year.

Stuart Evans, Northumberland National Park project director for The Sill, said: “The Sill’s main purpose is to open up Northumberland National Park and the surrounding areas to more people, helping them learn about and explore one of Britain’s finest landscapes.

“The new building will offer a huge range of facilities including a Rural Growth Hub to support the development of rural enterprises, office space and meeting rooms, YHA hostel accommodation, state-of-the-art interactive exhibition space with education and training rooms, a shop and local produce café.

“To be able to provide all these services and create the very best visitor experience possible, superfast broadband is crucial. Visitors will be able to use our wi-fi to interact with exhibits, post photos and share videos on social networking sites in seconds. Universities, colleges and schools will be able to offer high quality study trips from the heart of the national park knowing they will have fast access to online and in-Cloud educational materials.

“The operational and business benefits that fibre broadband will bring are also considerable. Superfast will make our online booking systems, card payment and electronic point of sale equipment faster and more efficient for customers.

“It will also help to attract local businesses to base themselves at The Sill where they can work in a stunning rural setting with the advantage of 21st century connectivity for high speed file and data transfer and virtual collaboration with colleagues and customers through conference and video calls.”

The Sill represents the largest scale initiative of its kind in the history of National Parks across the UK. It was awarded £7.75 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and is currently the biggest HLF grant awarded to a national park as well as one of the largest grants awarded in the North East this century.

Councillor Ledger added: “The Sill is a key tourism development for Northumberland – bringing visitor, education and business services to this rural part of the county, and the council is a strong supporter of the project. It’s very pleasing that the iNorthumberland project has been able to bring superfast broadband to support the facilities and services to be provided here, as well as to homes and other businesses in the area.”