ANGRY LOCALS in Moray have staged the ultimate remote office in a field in Forres, to hammer home to the Scottish Government the problems facing the area with poor connectivity – Inviting the SNP's broadband Minister to sample the realities of rural broadband for himself.

The fed-up Highland community dreamt up the stunt after reportedly being ‘brushed off’ by Paul Wheelhouse MSP - the Scottish Government’s Minister for Energy, Connectivity and the Islands – following delays in providing vouchers to help Scots improve their web access.

The Finderne Development Trust (FDT) – who are behind the rural stunt – have been working to bring fast broadband to Finderne since June 2019.

“Working from a desk in a field in the heart of our rural community will soon let Mr Wheelhouse get a taste of the everyday reality for those trying to run a business or home school kids in this part of the world,” said The FDT Development Manager Pery Zakeri.

“We’ve even seen people forced to leave the area because they can’t continue with university studies while living in their family homes because the connectivity is so bad.

“There are days when you’d be more successful getting a usable connection by trying to plug your phone or computer into a turnip, or maybe a passing cow,” she continued. “It’s the same story for remote and rural communities across the north of Scotland.

“What we want to show him is that you can have everything you need for a workplace or home office – but in 2021 it’s pretty much worthless without a functioning broadband connection.”

Families and businesses covered by the Finderne Development Trust have faced years of frustration with internet connection speeds, worsened by the pressures of the Coronavirus lockdowns.

Initially they attempted to pursue a Community Fibre Partnership and pinned their hopes on getting superfast fibre connections for the 498 properties in the area. However, those dreams were cut short by Openreach in mid-December.

Now the community has all of its hopes pinned on Mr Wheelhouse’s flagship R100 – Reaching 100% programme, which promises to deliver 30 Megabits per second (Mbps) to every home and business in Scotland by the end of 2021.

However, the R100 programme has been hit by a series of delays and, as Finderne residents have been told that it could take between 4-5 years to be delivered, the community claims the Government has fumbled the rollout of interim support vouchers.

Ms Pery added: “After waiting months for his response, we finally received what amounted to a patronising lecture about the history of the R100 programme – something we are very aware of having undertaken considerable research into broadband.

“If Mr Wheelhouse cares to take up our ‘remote working’ challenge for a day, he’ll soon understand the same levels of disappointment that he’s left us feeling in our community and no doubt many similar remote and rural communities across Scotland,” she concluded.