Under-spending gives Broadband Delivery UK extra funds

Local authorities have been under-spending on their broadband rollouts, which will give the government project Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) extra funds to achieve its goals.

The main aim of BDUK is to provide superfast broadband to 95 per cent of premises. This includes providing faster internet to even the most remote areas of the UK. The idea is to ensure that all internet users have a connection fast enough to handle even the most demanding amount of web traffic.

Now, with the under-spending by local authorities, to the tune of £150 million, the BDUK will receive this money allowing it to be reinvested into the second phase. Money from BT will also be sent back to BDUK, with a total of £280 million being available to invest in Phase 2 of BDUK.

So far, the BDUK rollout has been seen as a success story, with one example, the rollout of superfast broadband in County Durham, viewed as a major success. In this county, the amount of premises with superfast broadband has increased from 60 per cent to over 98 per cent. As a result, a number of small businesses grew by 11 per cent, as well as unemployment dropping from 8.4 per cent to 2.2 per cent.

Speaking at last week’s Connected Britain event in London, Chris Townsend, the chief executive of BDUK, said: “There was an underspend of £150 million against Phase 1 contracts, which is also coming back in. We hope that amount of money will give us at least one more percentage point [of coverage].”

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(Image: Bidgee)