THE £28.5m project to bring superfast broadband to Cheshire was officially launched on the start line at Oulton Park race circuit.
By 2016 more than 96 per cent of Cheshire premises will be able to access high-speed fibre broadband making the county one of the best connected in the UK.
More than 100 community “Digital Champions” attended the event at Oulton Park to hear how the new fibre network will be rolled out to rural premises and build on the networks already available in urban areas.
The Connecting Cheshire Partnership of the four Cheshire councils – Warrington, Halton, Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester – and BT has secured European, local and central government funding to provide additional rural broadband infrastructure to more than 80,000 premises that will build on BT’s on-going commercial investment in fibre across the county.
As a result more than 400,000 premises – around 96 per cent – across Cheshire, Halton and Warrington, 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 improvement, as the project aims to deliver a minimum of 2Mbps or more to almost all homes and businesses.
BT was awarded the contract following a procurement exercise through the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) framework.
Funding for the infrastructure elements of the project will be made up of a BT contribution of £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 Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds and £13.6m from European Regional Development Funds (ERDF).
Cllr Lynn Riley, Cheshire West and Chester Council’s executive member for localities said: “It is appropriate that the launch of Cheshire’s superfast broadband project was at Oulton Park – the home of high speed track racing – to signal the start of work which will put our rural businesses in pole position to generate opportunities and create employment.”
Connecting Cheshire expects to be able to announce which communities will be included in the first stage of the roll-out during December. Connecting Cheshire and BT will work together to prioritise a strategic roll-out so that the whole county’s best interests are served.
Pictured (left to right) project director Julian Cobley, Cllr Lynn Riley, Cllr Terry O’Neill, leader of Warrington Borough Council, Cllr Michael Jones, leader of Cheshire East Council, Howard Hopwood, deputy chairman, Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership and Bill Murphy, managing director, BT Next Generation Access.
