Extra 5,000 Wiltshire premises to benefit from superfast broadband rollout
An extra 5,000 homes and businesses in Wiltshire are going to gain access to superfast broadband thanks to an extension to the rollout of the services.
Wiltshire County Council has announced that an additional £3.86 million of funding has been pumped into the Wiltshire Online programme, which looks to get premises in the region connected to faster broadband speeds. The funding has come from three sources - £2.46 million from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's Superfast Extension Programme (SEP), £500,000 from Wiltshire county council, and £900,000 million from BT.
So far the Wiltshire Online scheme has laid infrastructure to get an additional 62,000 homes and businesses. When combined with commercial rollouts in the area, it brings the total figure up to around 180,000.
Council chief John Thomson said: "From the very start of this project our aim was for as many people as possible to benefit from this vital service and I am delighted thousands more homes and businesses will have access.
"We have invested significant money into the project because we recognise the long-term benefits to Wiltshire and the many opportunities it will create."
The Western Daily Press has reported that while the news will be welcomed by residents and businesses of Wiltshire, problems remain in the nearby counties of Somerset and Devon, where council chiefs failed to strike a similar deal to introduce the next phase of their respective superfast broadband rollouts.
Earlier this month, organisations representing more than 19,000 businesses across the town counties called on the project's bosses to 'learn lessons' and said if the issue wasn't sorted by connecting Devon and Somerset, it could 'prove fatal' to many rural businesses.
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(Image: Kings Sutton)
