Faster broadband on its way to the county’s hardest to reach properties

Gloucestershire County Council’s cabinet will be asked on Friday to approve a plan for the rollout of broadband to properties that have not yet got superfast speeds.

After eight years and £30M of investment, Fastershire has delivered over 95% superfast coverage across Gloucestershire. That’s more than 324,000 premises.

Plans have now been developed for the remaining 3 percent of properties that don’t yet have superfast broadband.

The Fastershire broadband strategy 2019 – 2022 supports one of the council’s key strategy ambitions ‘A Connected County’ which aims to improve internet connections so that people and businesses can connect with each other more easily.

The project has been particularly successful in the rollout of the full fibre technology, particularly in the Cotswolds which now has the fastest average download speed of anywhere in the UK. The project’s current rollout contract with Gigaclear is delivering the same ultrafast network connection to thousands more properties across the county. The revised approach outlines how this will become the norm for the whole county within the next three years.

The new plans will have a greater focus on offering grants to local communities to buy their own, tailor made broadband solutions from a selected range of suppliers.

Cllr Patrick Molyneux said “The Fastershire project has been incredibly successful so far and the vast majority of homes and businesses are already benefiting from the project’s investment.

“We are determined to ensure residents in Gloucestershire have access to superfast broadband and want to transform broadband access, making Gloucestershire one of the best connected areas in the country. The new Fastershire strategy outlines how we aim to extend this further to ensure even our hardest to reach properties benefit”.

You can see the strategy here.