Minister of State, Julia Lopez MP, has announced that over 78,000 more premises in Essex will benefit from gigabit-capable broadband.
An estimated 567,000 hard-to-reach premises across Cheshire, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Essex, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, East Riding and North Yorkshire are in line to benefit from the Conservative Government’s £5 billion Project Gigabit, which is bringing next generation gigabit-capable broadband across the UK.
The increase in speed will help accelerate the country’s recovery from Covid-19, fire up high-growth sectors such as tech and the creative industries, and enable people to start and run businesses online from anywhere in the UK.
The hundreds of thousands of properties across ten English counties are not currently due for a gigabit upgrade from broadband companies or other public schemes. That is why the Conservative Government is subsidising the roll out of new internet infrastructure capable of blistering download speeds of 1,000 megabits per second.
The projects will help the Conservative Government deliver its target for at least 85 per cent of the UK to have access to a gigabit-capable connection by 2025. The UK has already hit 57 per cent gigabit coverage, up from less than six per cent in 2019.
As Minister of State for Media, Data, and Digital Infrastructure, Julia wrote to all MPs with the attached letter reaffirming the Government's commitment to Project Gigabit and her expectation that this growth will continue, reaching 60% gigabit-capable coverage by the end of December.
Commenting, Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said:
“The latest stage of our £5 billion Project Gigabit plan will help hard-to-reach homes and businesses out of the broadband slow lane and plug them into the fastest and most reliable connections available.
“This investment is levelling up in action - building new internet connections in our rural communities so people have the speed, reliability and freedom to live and work flexibly, and take advantage of new technologies.”