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Connecting Cheshire secures fibre broadband for 80,000 rural homes and businesses

High-speed fibre broadband will be rolled out to around 96 per cent of Cheshire homes and businesses in the next three years under a £28.5 million project between four Cheshire councils and BT.

The Connecting Cheshire Partnership has secured funding to provide additional rural broadband infrastructure to over 80,000 premises that will build on BT’s on-going commercial investment in fibre across the county. As a result more than 400,000 premises (around 96 per cent) across Cheshire, Halton and Warrington, should have access to broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps by the end of 2016.

The project will transform broadband speeds across Cheshire, narrowing the gap between speeds in urban and rural areas.

BT was awarded the contract following a procurement exercise through the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) framework .The company is contributing £9m towards fibre deployment in “non-commercial” areas whilst The Connecting Cheshire Partnership is contributing £1.85m, with a further £4m coming from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds and £13.6m from European Regional Development Funds (ERDF)*

See our media release for more details.

* The project is part financed by the North West Competitiveness Programme, European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme, which is one of the funds established by the European Commission to help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support local businesses and create jobs. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/erdf-programmes-progress-and-achievements

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