BT Sign £21.96m Deal to Rollout Fibre Broadband in West Yorkshire UK

The West Yorkshire (England) local authorities have today agreed to a new £21.96 million state aid supported Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) contract with BT, which will make the operators “high-speed fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) network available to 97% of local premises by the end of Autumn 2015 (the last 3% will get speeds of at least 2Mbps).

The Superfast West Yorkshire project is being funded by £12.58 million from BT, £4.62 million from the Government’s BDUK budget, £3.79 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and surprisingly just £970,000 will come from all four of the Leeds City Council (LCC), Bradford Metropolitan District Council (BMDC), Wakefield Council (WC), Calderdale Council (CC) and some linked but smaller local authorities.

A related “demand stimulation and business support programme” will also be developed to demonstrate the benefits of high speed internet to residents and businesses.

Keith Wakefield, Chair of the Association of West Yorkshire Authorities, said:

“This is an important day for West Yorkshire as we take a vital step forward in the digital age. Fast and reliable internet is becoming crucial to daily life and for residents in West Yorkshire, it will provide an equal opportunity to access essential online activities such as council services, healthcare and other public services as well as offering new leisure and educational opportunities.

I believe it will help us strengthen our economy by giving small businesses a means to develop their potential and achieve their ambitions as well as encouraging new start-ups and job creation. This pioneering project will be of real benefit to many residents and businesses in West Yorkshire and we are continuing to work hard to bring the whole of West Yorkshire up to speed.

I encourage all businesses and residents in the region to take full advantage of this exciting opportunity and put West Yorkshire on the superfast map.”

BT has also supplied a tiny little map of West Yorkshire (see the article image), which roughly outlines the areas covered by this project in GREEN. By comparison the BROWN areas are Kirklees district and or come under the separate Super Connected Cities (Urban Broadband Fund) scheme. A higher quality map should soon become available from the projects website.

Sadly no installation schedule was made available, although Openreach will now begin its survey work and the first connections are then expected to go live sometime in 2014. But as usual neither the council nor BT has specified precisely what portion of the county can expect to receive “superfast” (25Mbps+) broadband speeds.