Bath & North East Council has agreed to invest a further £350,000 in seeking to ensure that businesses and homes across the area have access to superfast broadband.
Leader of the Council, Cllr Paul Crossley, said: “Access to superfast broadband and digital information is absolutely essential to the economic prosperity of our area; it is a key consideration for businesses when deciding on locations to expand or relocate.
“Superfast broadband is also vital for our rural areas both in relation to the expansion of homeworking and allowing residents access to online services and information.”
Through the Connecting Devon & Somerset (CDS) Partnership the Council is already working to improve rural broadband services.
The £94m project aims to provide superfast broadband to 90% of properties across Devon, Somerset, North Somerset & B&NES by 2016.
Survey work is now underway in Bath & North East Somerset and the roll-out of superfast broadband is expected to start in the autumn.
To build on this Bath & North East Somerset Council has earmarked an extra £200,000 for CDS, allowing it to lever in an additional £38 million to extend superfast broadband coverage across the region.
Building on commercial provision from the private sector, this new investment will enable CDS to increase coverage to 95% of homes and businesses by 2017 and it puts the programme well on the way to help ensure 100% coverage by 2020.
The Council is also investing £150,000 to support the implementation of the wider Digital B&NES strategy which will benefit urban centres and key business areas.
This includes plans for the delivery of a wireless connectivity network to enable Wi-Fi and 3G/4G coverage in city and town centres. The Council is in discussions with potential commercial providers which it is hoped can be finalised this year.
Longer-term, Bath & North East Somerset Council is investigating the options for the delivery of ultra-fast broadband to key sites in the Bath City Riverside Enterprise Area and working with the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) on projects to facilitate broadband connectivity for business, looking to build on the “super connected cities” government funded initiative.
As part of this work it is intended that the Bath City Riverside Enterprise Area will also be connected to the £15 million LEP Terrabit West closed loop Research and Development broadband project which will companies to test new applications on a system offering near unlimited speeds.
This will link enterprise areas across the West of England with other global research centres.
It’s also been announced this week that a broadband voucher scheme which has been running in Bristol is now being extended five miles into Bath and North East Somerset from the Bristol border.
Through the Connection Vouchers scheme around 2,300 small and medium sized businesses (including registered charities, social enterprises or sole traders) located within five miles of Bristol City Council’s administrative boundary will be eligible to apply for vouchers worth up to £3,000 each to improve their internet connection.
The scheme, which is backed by funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, has been running in Bristol since May.
Applications can be made online at www.connectionvouchers.co.uk/bristol, where there is also extra detail and advice about the scheme and the options available.
