Superfast South Yorkshire Scheme to Join the Broadband Vouchers Club

The Superfast South Yorkshire project, which is working with Openreach (BT) to roll-out “fibre broadband” to cover 97.9% of the region by the end of 2017 (Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield), has revealed that local businesses in Sheffield will soon benefit from a new voucher scheme.

The new ‘SFSY Connection and Innovation Voucher Scheme’, which is receiving funding from the ‘England European Regional Development Fund’ as part of the ‘European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020’, will be available to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across the Sheffield City Region.

The vouchers themselves are designed to help cover the setup cost of businesses that wish to either take-up faster digital / broadband connectivity (Connection Vouchers) and / or introduce enhanced ICT systems and / or processes that can “improve business performance through the faster digital connection” (Innovation Vouchers – available in South Yorkshire only).

Voucher Values

The Vouchers will have a maximum value, which will be 50% of the actual cost for the connection or innovation provided, excluding VAT:

Connection: Actual costs between £1000 and £5000 (Voucher values would be between £500 and £2500).

Innovation: Actual costs between £5000 and £24999 (Voucher values would be between £2500 and £12499.50).

At this stage we don’t have much detail on the new scheme, although we are told by SFSY that it will launch “Early in the New Year.” The approach appears to be a local attempt to recreate the Government’s earlier Connection Voucher scheme, which came to a close in October 2015 after it ran out of funding due to high take-up (details). Around 800 businesses in South Yorkshire benefited from the Government’s scheme, claiming over £1m worth of support.