Broadband boost for isolated areas

Herefordshire Council has agreed to invest up to £500,000 in faster broadband grants for isolated communities.

The council’s broadband rollout project Fastershire aims to drive the deployment of high-speed broadband infrastructure throughout the county through to 2022.

The latest stage of their strategy includes the establishment of a grant available to communities that remain outside of any current plan to be upgraded to superfast broadband.

The grant will use a dynamic purchasing system to identify the best value supplier of services and will be offered on a first come first served basis.

The Fastershire project is a partnership between Herefordshire Council, Gloucestershire County and national government to provide a fibre broadband network where commercial companies would not use their own investment.

For Herefordshire, coverage now stands at 90% for premises with access to superfast broadband up from a starting point of 0.6% in 2012.

The revised strategy aims to continue to increase the coverage through delivery of existing contracts along with a new grant scheme to communities introduced in 2020.

Commercial providers will also be operating their own schemes which will add to the superfast and ultrafast coverage in Herefordshire.