NINETY six per cent of properties in Warrington, Halton and Cheshire will get access to high-speed fibre broadband over the next three years, in a £28.5m deal between four councils and BT.
The Connecting Cheshire Partnership – made up of Warrington, Halton, Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester councils, has secured funding to provide additional rural broadband infrastructure to more than 80,000 premises.
This will build on BT’s on-going commercial investment in fibre across the county.
As a result, more than 400,000 premises should have access to broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps by the end of 2016.
Those premises in the remaining four per cent that currently experience low speeds will also see an uplift, as the project aims to deliver a minimum of 2Mbps or more to almost all homes and businesses.
The project will transform broadband speeds across Cheshire, narrowing the gap between speeds in urban and rural areas.
According to Ofcom, the county’s average downstream speed is currently around 11Mbps, while about 12 per cent of the population receive less than 2Mbps.
The investment will boost the local economy and help to create or protect local jobs.
A recent study for Cheshire, Warrington and Halton estimated that full coverage of superfast broadband would generate a gross impact of £1.3 billion in gross value added over 15 years and create 11,500 jobs, with a further £330m of economic benefits to households.
BT was awarded the contract following a procurement exercise through the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK framework .The company is contributing £9m towards fibre deployment in “non-commercial” areas, while the Connecting Cheshire Partnership is contributing £1.85m, with a further £4m coming from the Government’s BDUK funds and £13.6m from European Regional Development Funds.
Openreach, BT’s local network division, will now start the work on the ground with engineers surveying locations around the county and analysing the best way to roll out the network.
This initial survey work will take about eight months, so Connecting Cheshire should be in a position to announce which communities will be included in the first stage of the roll-out by December.
NINETY six per cent of properties in Warrington, Halton and Cheshire
will get access to high-speed fibre broadband over the next three years,
in a £28.5m deal between four councils and BT.
High speed broadband for 96 per cent
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
