Breakdown by UK City of Broadband Connection Voucher Uptake

The Government’s Connection Voucher scheme recently confirmed that grants worth between £100 and £3,000 had been issued to 14,000 SME businesses to help them install a superfast broadband (30Mbps+) connection. But how do the figures break down by each individual city and where are the vouchers most popular? Here’s the answer.

The original voucher scheme was supported by around £100m from the £150m Urban Broadband Fund (“Super-Connected Cities“), which last year increased by £40m and from April 2015 a total of 50 cities (including many outlying areas) will be able to offer the vouchers. The scheme itself is expected to run until March 2016.

Connection Voucher Cities

Existing cities in which the voucher scheme is already operating:

Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Derry / Londonderry, Edinburgh, Leeds, London , Manchester, Newcastle, Newport, Oxford, Perth, Portsmouth, Salford, York.

New cities in which the voucher scheme will be offered from April 1, 2015*:

Bournemouth, Chelmsford, Dundee, Exeter, Glasgow, Gloucester, Hull, Inverness, Ipswich, Leicester, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth, Preston, Reading, Sheffield, Southampton, Southend on Sea, Stirling, Stoke on Trent, Sunderland, Swansea, Swindon, Wolverhampton

* Funding for the new cities is on a first come, first serve basis (i.e. no specific allocations like the original / existing cities)

Naturally we wanted to know a little bit more about uptake and the Broadband Delivery UK office was kind enough to help, although we weren’t able to secure as much detail as we would have liked. We’ve also been told that the most recent voucher uptake figure is somewhere between 15,000 to 16,000 and the current average value per voucher is around £2,000 (i.e. the bulk of the fund is still unused).

Voucher Uptake by City (Excludes Recent City Additions)

Aberdeen 75
Belfast 780
Birmingham 810
Brighton 201
Bristol 399
Cambridge 234
Cardiff 477
Coventry 345
Derby 137
Derry 190
Edinburgh 441
Leeds, Bradford 2,095
London 5,340
Manchester 1,460
Newcastle 290
Newport 69
Oxford 123
Perth 38
Portsmouth 157
Salford 379
York 119

Total: 14,159

Unsurprisingly London, which is the biggest city by far and has been involved in the scheme since the start, also reports the strongest uptake and they’re followed by the other major population centres of Leeds, Bradford (their strategy is combined) and Manchester. Make of the rest what you will.