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UPDATE UK Gov Allocates Remaining Superfast Broadband Funds to Local Councils

Posted: 16th Aug, 2011 By: MarkJ

The government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office, which has an initial budget of £530m to ensure that 90% of "people in each local authority area" can access a superfast broadband (25Mbps+) ISP service by 2015 (the remaining 10% will only get a minimum speed of 2Mbps), has today allocated its remaining money to councils across England (£294.8m) and Scotland (£68.8m - Scottish Government "will need to consider how best to use the funds").

The DCMS Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt, said:

"I am absolutely determined that the UK will have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015 – one that we all benefit from. Fast broadband is absolutely vital to our economic growth, to delivering public services effectively, and to conducting our everyday lives.

But some areas of the UK are missing out, with many rural and hard-to-reach communities suffering painfully slow internet connections or no coverage at all. We are not prepared to let some parts of our country get left behind in the digital age.

The Government is investing £530 million of public money to help bring broadband to every home and business in the UK. We are doing our part – it is now up to local authorities and the Scottish Government to do their bit, to get on board and work with us to secure the social and economic future of their communities.

I urge all those suffering the frustration of slow internet connections to make it clear to your local elected representatives that you expect them to do what is needed to access this investment and to deliver broadband to your community."

The BDUK allocation is calculated based on the modelled scale of "the problem" in each area (i.e. the number of state aid "white premises" that are eligible for subsidy because they cannot currently get a good broadband connection). Today's move is in addition to the £56.9 Million that was recently allocated to Wales (here) and the £4.4 Million for Northern Ireland (here). But not everybody thinks that the money will be enough.

Malcolm Corbett, CEO of the Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), warned:

"Government funding to help meet the challenges of broadband deployment is welcome. However on it’s own the funding available can't solve the broadband notspots and deliver universal next generation broadband. BDUK has indicated that its funding amounts to £60-£70 per premise in those 'final third' areas beyond the reach of commercial deployment. So Cumbria gets £17m to cover 240,000 premises. This compares to an average cost nationally of about £1000 per premise for a fully future-proofed job - i.e. fibre to the premise.

In the absence of a national next gen roll-out plan, channelling the funding locally is a good thing. Local authorities, working with their local communities and the private sector, are in a good position to work out how best to deal with their broadband problems. Many have been thinking hard about these issues for some time and have been developing innovative schemes - in both rural and urban areas. However BDUK is insisting that local authorities adopt a common 'gap funding' approach which tends to work against broadband 'localism' - i.e. examining the local issues then coming up with funding and technology solutions that can best serve local needs. The BDUK framework could end up being a straitjacket that stifles innovation.

Many of INCA’s private sector members share these concerns, not least some of the smaller, innovative companies that are building next generation broadband networks, often in the most challenging areas. They face being excluded from the funding programme except as sub-contractors to the big players.

Arguably these are perhaps inevitable consequences of the government’s target to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015. It’s a great target that everyone has got behind, but the timescale becomes very challenging when public procurement, tendering and project development enter the frame."

The government also expects councils, which have now effectively taken over responsibility for administering the money from BDUK, to adopt a match-funding approach (i.e. a 50/50 split with private sector investment) that could effectively double the size of their pot.

BDUK has previously indicated that it could still claw an additional £300m out of the BBC's 3.5% (TV Licence fee) Digital Switchover Budget (i.e. a total BDUK budget of £830m), which would run between 2015 and 2017, if it felt that more would be needed to complete the task properly.

ISPreview.co.uk has also put together a clearer list of today's allocations, which took a long time to complete so we hope you appreciate the effort :cheese: (note: as better information becomes available from the pilot procurements then model assumptions and allocations could still be "refined") .

BDUK Funding Distribution in England

1. Bedfordshire
Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, Luton
White Premises: 34,865 (13.4% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £1,060,000

2. Berkshire
Bracknell Forest, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, Wokingham
White Premises: 29,027 (8.0% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £1,430,000

3. Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes
White Premises: 54,703 (17.0% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £2,100,000

4. Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire, Peterborough
White Premises: 140,956 (40.5% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £6,750,000

5. Cheshire
Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton, Warrington
White Premises: 100,613 (21.1% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £3,240,000

6. Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
Cornwall, Isles of Scilly
White Premises: 232,361 (89.0% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £0 (presumed covered by major on-going BT broadband project)

7. Cumbria
Cumbria
White Premises: 240,683 (96.2% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £17,130,000

8. Derbyshire
Derbyshire, Derby
White Premises: 188,043 (40.1% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £7,390,000

9. Devon and Somerset
Devon, Plymouth, Torbay, Somerset, North Somerset
White Premises: 563,022 (64.2% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £31,320,000

10. Dorset
Dorset, Bournemouth, Poole
White Premises: 172,670 (48.3% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £9,440,000

11. Durham
County Durham, Gateshead
White Premises: 144,692 (42.8% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £7,790,000

12. East Sussex
East Sussex, Brighton and Hove
White Premises: 226,530 (62.5% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £10,640,000

13. Essex
Essex, Southend-on-Sea, Thurrock
White Premises: 219,525 (28.4% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £6,460,000

14. Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
White Premises: 150,405 (54.3% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £8,070,000

15. Greater London
Greater London
White Premises: 34,877 (1.0% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £0 (presumed covered by private sector)

16. Greater Manchester
Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan
White Premises: 71,171 (5.8% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £990,000

17. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight
Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, Southampton
White Premises: 227,592 (26.9% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £8,420,000

18. Herefordshire
County Of Herefordshire
White Premises: 83,962 (99.8% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £6,350,000

19. Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
White Premises: 39,126 (8.1% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £1,110,000

20. Humber
City Of Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire
White Premises: No KCOM DATA (? of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £8,540,000 (subject to revision)

21. Kent
Kent, Medway
White Premises: 279,001 (36.7% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £9,870,000

22. Lancashire
Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool
White Premises: 260,716 (38.7% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £10,830,000

23. Leicestershire and Rutland
Leicestershire, Leicester, Rutland
White Premises: 109,190 (25.1% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £3,880,000

24. Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
White Premises: 230,963 (69.6% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £14,310,000

25. Merseyside
Knowsley, Liverpool, St. Helens, Sefton, Wirral
White Premises: 105,884 (16.6% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £5,460,000

26. Norfolk
Norfolk
White Premises: 274,175 (66.8% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £15,440,000

27. Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
White Premises: 74,118 (23.9% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £4,080,000

28. Northumberland
Northumberland
White Premises: 108,508 (71.0% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £7,030,000

29. North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire, York
White Premises: 247,864 (66.6% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £17,840,000

30. Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire, Nottingham
White Premises: 117,650 (23.7% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £4,250,000

31. Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
White Premises: 83,570 (29.8% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £3,860,000

32. Shropshire
Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin
White Premises: 101,413 (48.0% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £8,210,000

33. South Yorkshire
Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, Sheffield
White Premises: 227,635 (37.6% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £0 (presumed covered by Digital Region Ltd.)

34. Staffordshire
Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent
White Premises: 178,158 (36.0% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £7,440,000

35. Suffolk
Suffolk
White Premises: 226,184 (66.5% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £11,680,000

36. Surrey
Surrey
White Premises: 52,822 (10.7% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £1,310,000

37. Tees Valley
Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees
White Premises: 26,550 (8.7% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £770,000

38. Tyne and Wear
Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Sunderland
White Premises: 119,004 (28.0% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £3,420,000

39. Warwickshire
Warwickshire, Coventry, Solihull
White Premises: 119,757 (25.1% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £4,070,000

40. West of England
Bath and North East Somerset, City of Bristol, South Gloucestershire
White Premises: 54,560 (14.4% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £1,430,000

41. West Midlands
Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, Wolverhampton
White Premises: 95,611 (10.2% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £630,000

42. West Sussex
West Sussex
White Premises: 175,526 (47.3% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £6,260,000

43. West Yorkshire
Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, Wakefield
White Premises: 212,336 (21.2% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £6,340,000

44. Wiltshire
Wiltshire, Swindon
White Premises: 104,145 (34.5% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £4,900,000

45. Worcestershire
Worcestershire
White Premises: 63,280 (24.7% of total premises) | BDUK Cash: £3,350,000

UPDATE 1:00pm

The UK Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which claim to have been calling for public sector money to provide superfast broadband in the countryside since 2003, welcomed today's news.

CLA President, William Worsley, said:

"I am delighted the Government recognises that rural areas are missing out on all the benefits broadband brings and that the countryside should not be overlooked. Rural areas are woefully underserved by even an adequate broadband service let alone superfast.

The CLA has argued for eight years that a Public Private Partnership (PPP) should be created to provide the correct level of investment for a superfast broadband infrastructure and today’s announcement by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt supports this.

The Government has now handed the baton to local authorities so rural residents and businesses must tell their local councils if they are suffering from poor access or no broadband at all and make sure their concerns are listened to.

Broadband is the key to unlocking the potential of the rural economy and these areas now have the opportunity to grasp the same advantages enjoyed by their urban counterparts."

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