WEST Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has slammed the “shambolic” management of BT after the company admitted it could not meet the next deadline for delivering superfast broadband to Somerset and Devon.

The company is currently working on the first phase of a major, publicly-funded project to link thousands of homes, many in rural areas where families and businesses are struggling with slow broadband speeds. The work is due for completion next year.

But BT has now lost the £35 million contract for the next phase after conceding it could not achieve 95 per cent coverage by the end of 2017.

The contract will now be re-advertised by Connecting Devon and Somerset, the agency representing the local authorities from Bath to Plymouth, which are financing the £94 million roll-out.

Mr Liddell-Grainger, who chairs the all-party Rural Broadband and Mobile Technology parliamentary group, warned this would inevitably lead to further delays in extending superfast broadband coverage.

“The worst aspect is that it is those people in really remote locations who are most in need of improved communications who look likely to suffer most,” he said.

The announcement that the contract would go elsewhere followed weeks of discussions between the two sides that ended with BT admitting it would not be able to meet the Government’s and CDS target for 95 per cent coverage by the specified date.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said BT had let down the councils, hundreds of rural businesses and thousands of rural families. He now plans to seek an urgent meeting with Communications Minister Ed Vaizey and will be calling for government help in completing the planned roll-out as rapidly as possible.

“This has been a pretty sloppy and shambolic exercise from day one,” he said.

“BT has been making incredibly heavy weather of this project and constantly putting back connection dates. All we ever heard were complaints about how difficult it was proving to access some areas – but everyone knew access was going to be a challenge, which was precisely why BT was being paid such a vast sum for the work.

“BT has left Devon and Somerset with a job half done and the prospect of yet more delays while a new contractor is found – a pretty damning indictment of a company which styles itself a major telecommunications provider.”

BT said in a statement that it was “disappointed” that it could not complete the work.

“We believe we have made the best possible offer to take superfast broadband coverage beyond the current target of around 90% by the end of next year, taking into account the challenging and remote nature of some locations in the two counties.”

BT claimed over 34,000 premises in the area would have benefitted from superfast broadband by 2020 – although it would require a substantial engineering operation and over 15 years to recoup the costs involved.