2,300 Extra North Lincolnshire UK Premises to Get “Superfast Broadband”

A further 2,300 homes and businesses in North Lincolnshire (England) are set to get access to “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) speeds via Openreach’s (BT) network due to a reinvestment of £2.9m in public funding from earlier phases of the Northern Lincs Broadband project.

So far the original Phase 1 and several related Phase 2 extension contracts to the Northern Lincs Broadband scheme claim to have already helped to make “superfast broadband” (FTTC/P) available to around 92.5% of local premises, with the raw “fibre broadband” footprint (this includes sub-24Mbps speed areas) taking coverage up to around 97% (i.e. 37,000 additional homes and businesses).

Last year another extension was signed (here) that aims to “take superfast to over 99% of the area” by 2018 (whenever politicians say sometime like “by 2018” we assume it means “by the end of 2018“). The good news is that efficiency savings and clawback due to high take-up (over 40% in related areas) in earlier phases of the project has now enabled £2.9 million to be reinvested on a further extension to 2,300 extra premises (here).

Cllr Rob Waltham, Leader of North Lincolnshire Council, said:

“The project has already been a massive success and was recognised nationally as best practice and in the top six nationally for completing the first phase the quickest. We are now on track to reach our aim of providing 99% of properties across northern Lincolnshire with access to superfast broadband.

Being able to access high speed broadband has many benefits for residents and businesses, which we are encouraging them to take full advantage of.”

Tom Keeney, Chair of BT’s Yorkshire and Humber Board, said:

“More than 120,000 homes and businesses in Northern Lincs can now access fibre broadband thanks to the Northern Lincs Broadband and BT’s own commercial roll-out.

The second phase of the Northern Lincs programme continues at pace and with an extension having been agreed we are pressing on to improve broadband speeds as widely as possible across the area.”

Apparently some of the first locations to benefit from this latest extension will include parts of Amcotts, Sandtoft, Owston Ferry, Thornton Curtis, East Butterwick, Greetwell, Coleby and Bonby. Sadly no clear timescale has been given for this extension but that may become clearer in the future.

The existing project is also supported by the Government’s national Broadband Delivery UK programme, which has so far contributed a total of £4.32m in public funding to the scheme and this is supported by £2.42m from local bodies (councils etc.).