Residents and businesses in the Minchinhampton and Lydney areas are set to enjoy an early Christmas present.

More than 1,300 residents and business owners in Minchinhampton and more than 2,200 residents and business owners in Newerne in Lydney are set to get connected as engineers are due to complete work to extend a full fibre connection to them in December.

Work to connect Minchinhampton started in August 2022 when engineers from telecoms company Gigaclear began extending its network from nearby Hampton Fields using fibre optic cables.

They have been going street-to-street either digging new trenches or using existing infrastructure such as poles and ducting in order to reach each property.

Senior project manager Beth Dale said Gigaclear was working hard to ensure rural communities such as Minchinhampton and neighbouring Amberley and Brimscombe can access the same fast and reliable full fibre broadband enjoyed by larger urban areas.

Beth said: "Taking our full fibre to rural communities that might otherwise have copper or an inferior part fibre broadband connection fundamentally changes them for the better because it creates choice for the people in those communities about how they work and how they live their lives."

In Lydney, work to connect the community started in August 2022 when Gigaclear engineers began extending its network from the nearby villages of Alvington and Aylburton along the A48 using fibre optic cables.