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 strategy stage 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 Council 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.
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