Scotland UK Assigns GBP9 Million to Rural Broadband Development

The Scottish Government has this week launched a formal consultation for its new seven-year £1.3 billion+ Rural Development Programme (SRDP), which includes a vague proposal to spend an extra £9 million on broadband infrastructure in rural areas by 2020.

At the time of writing there’s next to no information about precisely how this money would be spent, although hopefully the Scottish Government can develop a more effective approach than the £20m Rural Community Broadband Fund (RCBF) that has so far struggled to award funding to any projects other than those which involve BT (though we still think that B4RN might be in with a chance to secure one of the grants).

The official consultation document only mentions broadband once: “We are also proposing there will be around £9m of support for broadband. We are exploring how best to deliver this taking account of investments from other EU funds and domestic sources.”

Richard Lochhead, Rural Affairs Secretary, said:

“A vibrant rural Scotland is one of our greatest assets and today I set out my vision for the new SRDP – an ambitious programme that will delivery our key priorities of sustainable economic growth, environmental sustainability and vibrant rural communities.

The failure of the UK Government to negotiate anything like a reasonable budget settlement on our behalf will see Scotland continue to have the lowest rural development allocation per hectare in the European Union.

That is a major disappointment – especially when you consider during the recent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) negotiations the UK Government had the opportunity to join 16 other EU countries securing hundreds of millions of euros more in rural development funding.

Despite this blow, I am determined that there will still be opportunities to support our rural communities and economy, and further utilise Scotland’s natural environment and heritage.”

Separately Scotland will still benefit from an investment of £264 million (£106.7m of which will come from BT), which aims to make BT’s “high-speed fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) service available to 85% of Scottish homes and businesses by the end of 2015 and around 95% by the end of 2017. Meanwhile the above consultation will remain open until 28th February 2014.