West Sussex to Pilot Broadband Install Grants for Local Businesses

Digitally isolated business estates or clusters in West Sussex (England) will soon have the option of applying to the new Digital Connectivity Grant Programme, which will help to cover up to 40% of the cost of getting connected to a superfast broadband service.

The move follows news that the Government’s own Connection Voucher scheme, which gifted grants of up to £3,000 to help smaller UK businesses get a superfast broadband service installed, had finally come to an end after consuming all of its available funding supply (here); overall 55,000 SMEs across the UK benefited from those vouchers.

The Government may yet announce another voucher scheme or funding boost (we’ll find out next week), but in the meantime the Coast to Capital’s Local Growth Deal is being used to supply £225,000 of funding to support the new pilot scheme in West Sussex that will run for a brief period from 30th November to 15th January 2016.

Ed Vaizey, Digital Economy Minister, said:

“This is fantastic news for businesses in West Sussex. Government is already investing more than £8 million to take superfast broadband to around 50,000 more premises in the county, and this extra funding will help even more local businesses benefit from all that superfast speeds have to offer.”

Unlike Connection Vouchers, local businesses will only be eligible for the new scheme if they don’t already have access to a broadband service and are NOT included in a location that will benefit from the West Sussex Better Connected project. The latter is working with BT to expand the coverage of “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) to around 98% of local homes and businesses by Spring 2016 (90% will get “superfast” speeds of 24Mbps+).

The new programme, which given the eligibility criteria sounds a lot like it will be targeted at more rural areas, has been developed by Rural West Sussex, Gatwick Diamond, Coastal West Sussex, West Sussex County Council and the South Downs National Park Authority.

However £225K is a very small pot of money, but then it is just a pilot and we can’t help but wonder whether the Government may be considering something similar for the rest of the United Kingdom. Further details should be available from this website on 30th November.