FED-UP villagers sick of waiting for broadband have been praised for setting up their own system.

The Martley Web Mesh has been running successfully on a shoestring budget and with the backing of volunteers since 2005 when villager and honey farmer Richard Jackman set up the company.

With more than 60 users already, and speeds up to seven megabits a second – higher than the Government’s own target – the do-it-yourself system is now planning an expansion.

When West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin visited to see how the system works, she called it a perfect example of “local initiative”.

Outlying residents of Martley say it is the only sure way of getting a good broadband connection, with farmers, villagers, surgeons and pensioners on its list of customers.

John Nicklin, company secretary and director, said: “We’re a small group of people, with four directors and a couple of others.

“We rent business ADSL broadband hardlines, connected to a few homes [with internet coverage] in the village and then using aerials we send this signal out to customers who cannot get a good connection,” he said.

The system has been steadily growing in size, and there are now plans to boost the broadband signal all the way to Worcester and the Teme Valley.

Mr Nicklin said: “We were not the first to do it, but it’s popular and we offer a good and local service.

"Some people in the village who could get BT broadband instead choose to use us. They all know us and we all know them.”

Subscribers pay £12 a month for the service, plus an installation cost.

It has proven a useful tool for local farmers who are encouraged to send herd and tax returns to the Government online. Mrs Baldwin has called for more funding for ‘not-spots’ where conventional broadband is slow or non-existent.

She said: “Many of the parishes have told me about the huge problems they face getting online.

“High speed broadband is a great aspiration but we simply have to fix the cable problems in some of our outlying villages first.”

She said councils would be given Government money to help fund connections to rural homes, but said the MWM system should be promoted “to show how innovative thinking and the Big Society can work hand in hand to improve our rural communities.”