PRIME Minister Boris Johnson spoke about a broadband revolution when he toured a telecoms training hub in Bolton today.

Bosses at Openreach, the BT subsidiary, had announced 255 new north-west engineering posts overnight, to help with the roll-out of their full fibre network.

And the Bolton News revealed how the majority of those positions would receive training at the new £1.7m company training hub at Breightmet.

Mr Johnson was given a tour of the facility, which has a real-life street scene and homes, for engineers to finetune their skills, as well as rows of telegraph poles to practice more traditional repairs.

Mr Johnson, said: "It's been a very tough time and I know how sacrifice the people of Bolton where things have been tough for a very long time.

"I know what everyone's been through, in particular the hospitality sector.

"It's good that Openreach are announcing jobs today, the first of many, many more that they will be doing in the next few years.

"This is a decisive programme to put gigabit broadband into every household that we can.

"We're aiming for the whole of the country to be done and we think that we can do the vast, vast majority of the country very quickly.

"Last year seven per cent of the county had gigabit capable broadband, this year it will be 27 per cent and next year will be 50 per cent.

"It's the fastest roll-out in the history of the universe I'm proud to say.

"it's a transformative thing, towns villages, homes, in place that had poor connections now have fantastic basic communications infrastructure which give people the chance to invest there, live there, grow up there, open businesses there which maybe were difficult before.

"So maybe now you don't have to live in the big city if you've got good schools, good communications a nice neighbourhood, you can transform your life so this is a massive part of our levelling up agenda and we think there will be many more high skilled jobs in this area."

The Prime Minister was also asked whether England would follow Northern Ireland in imposing stringent restrictions after the festive period.

He told reporters: "We're hoping very much that we will be able to avoid anything like that. But the reality is that the rates of infection have increased very much in the last few weeks."

Engineers at the Breightmet centre, which only opened last year, learn everything from laying cables and building joints to working on underground systems or old-fashioned telegraph poles.

Ducts and poles connect up all the premises to a nearby telecoms exchange, so engineers can tackle genuine problems they may encounter in the field.

The new posts are part of a wider 5,300 strong recruitment campaign by Openreach, which has also pledged to convert its 27,000 strong fleet to electric vehicles by 2030.

Robert Thorburn, their regional director, said: “Our full fibre network build is going faster than ever and we’re now looking for people across the North West to build a career with us and help us upgrade broadband connections and continue improving service levels throughout the region."