£3.35million success for Faster Broadband

Worcestershire's residents and businesses have reason to celebrate with £3.35million being unlocked for the County for Faster Broadband.

The funding allocation from Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), a department of central government, is in response to the successful submission of Worcestershire’s Local Broadband Plan (LBP) "Connecting Worcestershire."

Worcestershire’s LBP aims for ‘Faster Broadband for all by 2015’. 'Open for Business' is one of the County's key priorities and access to faster broadband is vital to ensure companies are able to remain competitive and grow their businesses. The plan, therefore, includes ambitious targets for 90% of Worcestershire's businesses and residents to have access to Superfast Broadband, with 100% of the county being able to access at least 2mbps.

The £3.35million awarded today is addition to the £8.5million which has already been pledged as the indicative local authority allocation with significant further funding anticipated from private industry. 

The next stage will be for the County to enter the National BDUK Procurement Framework. The availability of the National BDUK Procurement Framework is imminent and will be made available to councils nationally in a phased way with Worcestershire County Council currently working to bring forward their access to this Framework to Summer 2012. This will enable the county to begin negotiations with suppliers, enable expenditure of committed local authority and BDUK monies and for faster broadband speeds to reach communities as soon as possible.

A range of innovative local solutions will also start being put in place as soon as Summer 2012 as an additional £700k of grant funding was made available locally in January 2012 for communities identified as being in the final 10% of areas which may not otherwise receive more than 2mbps. Up to fourteen of the Worcestershire rural communities that submitted Expressions of Interest will receive monies before the end of Summer based on working with the council to develop business cases.

Cllr Adrian Hardman, Worcestershire County Council's Leader, said: “This is a great day for Worcestershire. This funding will help us to further support the local economy as slower broadband speeds restrict the ability for businesses to operate. We are committed to ensuring Worcestershire is Open for Business and faster broadband will support local businesses and add to the county's attractiveness for businesses looking to relocate. I am pleased for our businesses and residents that our submission for this vital funding has been successful and we will now work to put our plans into action as quickly as possible.”

Cllr David Thain, Worcestershire County Council's Cabinet member for Transformation and Change, said: “We already have ambitious targets for 2015 but will be working to put these in place as soon as possible and to increase speeds as much as we can with the funding available. We will continue our dialogue with suppliers to encourage private sector investment and so I would urge everyone in the County to show support to help us to make faster broadband for Worcestershire a reality.”

Residents and businesses can find out more and show support for faster broadband for Worcestershire by visiting www.worcestershire.gov.uk/broadband. Those with a smart phone and the QR reader software can also scan the QR Code and go straight to this page. On Facebook show support by liking the page www.facebook.com/broadbandworcs and join in the conversation.

This page was last reviewed 1 May 2012 at 18:10.
The page is next due for review 28 October 2013.