Meeting scheduled to discuss Westside broadband

ANOTHER meeting is is taking place in the Westside tonight (Thursday) about improving  broadband provision in the area.

The meeting is being held at 7pm in the Walls Regatta Club.

It will be attended by Duncan Nisbet, who is involved with the digital directorate in the Scottish Government.

The idea is that the community could pool together government broadband vouchers to potentially install full fibre broadband.

An initial meeting was held in Walls on the subject last month.

The event is being put on by local resident Mary Macgregor, who is working in collaboration with Digital Scotland.

She said better broadband would benefit everyone in the area, which has traditionally suffered from poor connectivity.

Macgregor added that there will be an expression of interest form available at the meeting, or the Walls shop, with these needing to be completed by the end of the month.

A flyer for the event said that “if enough of us say ‘yes’ then Digital Scotland will continue finding solutions to all the obstacles with the approved supplier of their choice”.

“Nothing will happen if most of us say ‘no’ and we will all wait 15-20 years for ultrafast broadband speeds,” it adds.

It comes ahead of a Shetland digital forum at the Islesburgh Community Centre in Lerwick tomorrow (Friday) between 12pm and 1.30pm.