A BETTER broadband service could be on the way for Tweedbank within a matter of weeks, British Telecom has confirmed.

The issue of slow broadband speeds has plagued the village and led to repeated calls for action by the local community council.

At the group's annual meeting in June, chairman John Cavaroli said improving the provision of broadband in Tweedbank - for both businesses and residents - remained the number one priority.

Scottish Borders Council leader, David Parker, who lives in Tweedbank, said an announcement was expected 'imminently' that BT would be making its high speed fibre optic service 'Infinity' available to the village.

"The council and the Scottish Govrnment are working on better broadband for the Borders. There is a chance Tweedbank could be part of the first tranche." And, with BT vans seen in and around Tweedbank as well as Galashiels in recent weeks, a spokesman confirmed: "We are working to upgrade the Galashiels exchange for super-fast broadband with the aim of it going live in the autumn.

" A number of street cabinets in the Tweedbank area are also being upgraded as part of this programme." Asked if this meant super-fast broadband would then be available in Tweedbank, the spokesman added: "Yes, but as is the case with all the exchanges in our programme, not everyone in the area will benefit immediately." He added: "In total, more than 7,000 homes and businesses in the Galashiels area will benefit from fibre optic broadband as part of BT's 2.5billion roll-out programme.

"BT's local network business Openreach expects to make high-speed fibre optic broadband available to two-thirds of UK homes and businesses by the end of 2015.

"It is using a maix of fibre to the cabinet and fibre to the premises technologies. Both provide much faster speeds than those previously available to many homes and businesses.

"Due to current network topography and the economics of deployment, it is likely that a small minority of premises within the exchange areas being upgraded will not initially be able to be served by fibre-based broadband. However, Openreach is actively looking at alternative solutions for these locations." Mr Cavaroli said he looked forward to an official announcement from BT about the availability of fibre-optic broadband in Tweedbank.

But he added: "It would be brilliant - such a boon to the village. A lot of the businesses would be over the moon.

"I know of some businesses that have tried to spend quite large amounts of money to upgrade their systems only to be told it would be useless to do so because of the slow poor broadband connection."