More than 270 public buildings in the most remote parts of Northumberland are to be kitted out with superfast, full-fiber broadband.
Speaking at the meeting of Northumberland County Council’s cabinet on July 7, Coun. Nick Oliver, who represents Corbridge and is the council’s portfolio holder for corporate services, revealed that work on the Northumberland Gigabit Project had begun.
The scheme will form part of a “hub and spoke” model to connect homes and businesses that remain unconnected to the web, or those with poor, slow internet connections.
At the meeting last week, additional spending of £932,111 was approved by councillors to support the completion of the programme, following a successful bid by the North of Tyne Combined Authority to the Government’s Local Full Fibre Networks Programme last year.
The money will be used to connect buildings not covered by money from the Government via the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport or Building Digital UK.
The funding is only available for those properties connected to Full Fibre by December 31.
BT’s plan shows a small number of properties connections would not be completed until March 31 2022. As these properties fall outside the BDUK funding window, the council would be expected to pick up the cost of these connections.
Speaking at the council meeting, Coun. Nick Oliver, cabinet member for corporate services, said: “We recently became successful with a bid through the Combined Authority for a £12m fund to provide broadband in public buildings across the county, taking it into areas that don’t have it at all.
“This will create more hubs, and we can spoke off and reach resident’s houses and businesses.
“In education, it will give us the opportunity to use digital technology in schools that currently can’t.
“It’s a really important programme. There’s been a huge amount of work gone into this.
Coun. Peter Jackson, leader of the council, said the scheme was key to improving the network in the county, and asked what the timescale on the project would be.
Coun. Oliver replied; “Work has started. They’re out digging trenches as we speak.
“We will start seeing improvements in the next few months.
“Some of these communities are going from no broadband at all to full fibre.
“We just need to roll it out as quick as we can.
Elsewhere in the district, Broadband for North Tyne and Redesdale (B4NTR) proposes high speed broadband to rural premises, increased download speeds and future community financial benefits.
Set up by a team of volunteers last year, B4NTR has teamed up with Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN) – an organisation which prioritises connecting people to full fibre broadband and aims to future-proof communities which have been digitally disadvantaged for years.
An ambitious £100,000 project was launched by community group Broadband 4 Allen Valleys (B4AV) in 2017, in a bid to improve internet connections for 400 households and businesses.
The Warksburn Community Fibre Project was set up with the aim of bringing an end to years of dealing with painfully slow internet speeds or inflated monthly costs for a satellite service.
Source: https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/18584053.full-fibre-broadband-coming-remote-areas/