15
June
2015
|
11:16
Europe/London

Leicestershire Village gets access to high-speed fibre broadband

Summary
Faster broadband speeds are now available to more than 400 homes and businesses across Hallaton and Medbourne.


Faster broadband speeds are now available to more than 400 homes and businesses across Hallaton and Medbourne.

Villagers in both rural communities can now sign up to high-speed fibre broadband for the first time thanks to the Superfast Leicestershire partnership between Leicestershire County Council and BT.

Villagers recently attended a community meeting at Medbourne Village Hall to find out more about what fibre broadband can do for them and the benefits that faster speeds can offer.

Blake Pain, Leicestershire County Council cabinet member for rural broadband said, “I am proud to announce that both villages will soon see high-speed fibre broadband in their area.

“We know residents have been keen to see the technology and its benefits introduced and of course this is another positive step towards our vision of bringing high speed fibre broadband to all Leicestershire homes and businesses.”

David Tuffs, information resources advisor to Medbourne Parish Council said, "Medbourne Parish Council is very pleased that the Superfast Leicestershire broadband programme has reached our village. The village has a number of businesses and home workers for whom fast broadband is now a necessity. It's no longer acceptable for rural communities like ours to be in the slow lane where technological development is concerned. We commend Openreach for achieving this installation with minimal disruption to the village."

Paul Bimson, BT’s regional partnership director for the East Midlands, said: “I am sure residents in Hallaton and Medbourne will be delighted with the arrival of fibre broadband. Residents can now choose a fibre broadband package by simply contacting their broadband provider. Villagers will now not only have faster speeds, but also access to the best broadband deals on the market.”

The arrival of fibre broadband into the two villages comes just a short time after Superfast Leicestershire announced that it had made faster speeds available to more than 37,000 homes and businesses across the county.

The programme has now installed 195 new fibre broadband cabinets and laid more than 334,000 metres of underground cables.

By the end of 2018, it's expected that more than 360,000 homes and businesses across Leicestershire will have access to fibre broadband thanks to the original £18.8 million Superfast Leicestershire contract (62,000), a £9.2 million contract extension signed in March (10,000) and BT’s own commercial roll-out of the technology (290,000). This includes £5m investment from Leicestershire County Council and £530,000 from Harborough District Council.

Benefits of fibre broadband include faster download and upload speeds; the ability to access the internet via multiple devices without experiencing a slow connection, faster downloads of films and music, a better online gaming experience, improved file sharing for businesses, solutions based on Cloud computing and being able to work more flexibly.

And because the upgrade is being carried out by Openreach, BT’s local network business, residents in both villages are able to sign up to fibre broadband packages from a wide range of internet service providers.

People living and working in Hallaton and Medbourne are now encouraged to contact their internet service provider and sign up to the new fibre broadband service.

For more information about Superfast Leicestershire visit www.superfastleicestershire.org.uk or look out for #SuperfastLeics on Twitter.

ENDS

Media enquiries - Kelly Baker-Adams (Media Officer, LCC) Kelly.baker-adams@leics.gov.uk 0116 305 3858 or you can contact the BT regional press office on 0800 085 0660.

About Superfast Leicestershire

Superfast Leicestershire is a project that seeks to extend high-speed fibre broadband coverage beyond the existing commercial fibre broadband rollout of companies such as Openreach (a BT Group company) and Virgin Media to support the County Council’s vision that all premises can access superfast broadband speeds by 2018.

As part of the initial £18.8m contract the county council is investing £4.0m in this project. £1.1m has been allocated by the district and borough councils, with an additional £3.4m coming from the Government and £1.2m from the European Union. BT is also contributing £9.1m towards the overall cost of the Superfast Leicestershire project. This contract will ensure high-speed broadband access to 62,000 premises.

The Superfast Extension Programme contract will ensure a further £9.2m of investment to increase coverage. Government is investing £3.45m, £1.45m is from the county council, £2m has been allocated by the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership as part of its Local Growth Fund, and £2.3m is from BT. The Superfast Extension Programme contract will ensure high-speed broadband access to more than 10,000 additional premises in Leicestershire.

Many homes and businesses in the county may already have access to fibre broadband. Superfast Leicestershire concentrates on the areas the commercial rollout is not able to reach. In addition to the commitment to extend superfast broadband coverage, Superfast Leicestershire aims to ensure all premises have access to at least 2Mbps.

The county council is keen to ensure that everyone within Leicestershire can benefit from this project as it helps to grow the economy over the coming years. The county council anticipates that this investment in superfast broadband could generate £92m of economic growth by 2021, and will work with local communities as well as help small businesses to adopt technologies and grow.


About Superfast Britain
Superfast Britain is a Government programme of investment in broadband and communication infrastructure across the UK. Run by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, this investment helps businesses to grow, creates jobs and will make Britain more competitive in the global race. The portfolio is comprised of three elements:

  • £780m to extend superfast broadband to 95% of the UK by 2017
    • £150m to provide high speed broadband to businesses in 22 cities
    • £150m to improve quality and coverage of mobile phone and basic data network services

Administered on behalf of Government by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), Superfast Britain is transforming Britain by promoting growth, enabling skills and learning, and improving quality of life.

For more information: https://www.gov.uk/broadband-delivery-uk

About Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP)
The LLEP is one of 39 Local Economic Partnerships (LEPs) in the country, set up to spearhead local economic development.

The LLEP has ambitious yet realistic targets to create 45,000 new jobs, lever £2.5 billion of private investment and increase Gross Value Added by £4 billion by 2020, by investing in infrastructure, business support and employment and skills initiatives.

The LLEP has achieved significant success in our area including:

  • the most advanced Enterprise Zone in the country, which has attracted the likes of Ashok Leyland and Bosch and created over 250 jobs
  • investing its Growing Places Fund to unlock the development of thousands of new homes and employment land and secure the relocation of Formula E (electric motorcar racing) to new international headquarters at Donington Park in Leicestershire
  • through City Deal creating its flagship Business Growth Hub and Leicester & Leicestershire to Work Programme.

The LLEP has allocated £3.1m to increase high-speed broadband coverage in Leicester and Leicestershire as part of its Local Growth Deal. Of this £2m have been allocated to Leicestershire County Council and £1.1m to Leicester City Council.

For more information visit www.llep.org.uk.