Rural Herefordshire broadband fund confirmed
Herefordshire County Council (HCC) has pledged an investment of up to £500,000 in grants to provide faster broadband to isolated rural communities in the region.
The investment will build on the council’s joint rollout with Gloucestershire County Council (GCC): Fastershire. The grants will seek to connect isolated areas not targeted under the current rollout to superfast broadband.
Fastershire, a joint program between the counties and the national government, is seeking to establish fibre broadband coverage in areas not targeted for investment by commercial providers.
The initial rollout of the project is seeking to increase access to superfast broadband in Herefordshire to 96 per cent from the current level of 90 per cent. Subsequent efforts will seek to connect the remaining 4 per cent, through a combination of the completion of existing contracts and new grants, along with schemes from commercial providers to build on superfast and ultrafast coverage in the county.
The new grants will be based around a pre-existing list of suppliers and will be awarded through a Dynamic Purchasing System, in order to select the best value supplier, and will be distributed on a first come first served basis. The grants aim to rollout gigabit-capable or FTTP networks “where value for money allows”.
Discussing the scheme, Herefordshire County Councillor Trin Marsh said: “Despite being one of the most sparsely populated counties in England, Herefordshire is quickly becoming one of the best-connected areas in the country.”
“This is vital to the future of our communities and businesses. Infrastructure projects like this are always challenging but even more so in such a rural county as Herefordshire, which had so little existing superfast coverage.”
“We know that the rollout of these new broadband networks sometimes takes a bit longer than residents and businesses would like, but there has been a massive investment in the county. We’re proud of the leap in superfast coverage from under 1 per cent to over 90 per cent in 7 years.”
“Now we are really starting to the see the benefits and encourage householders to check the new options now available to them.”
