Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland in £12m Full Fibre Bid

The North of Tyne Combined Authority (NTCA), which represents Newcastle, North Tyneside (Tyne and Wear) and Northumberland, has put its support behind a £12 million bid for funding from the UK Government’s Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme that could help to spread Gigabit connectivity into rural areas.

The proposal envisages that a new “full fibre” network would be built to connect as many as 900 public buildings (council, NHS, police sites etc.) across the area to Gigabit speed fibre optic lines. The Government funding would also be matched by the local authorities in order to return a total investment of around £24 million.

The primary focus would be on improving connectivity to sites in rural areas, which further down the road might also provide a useful platform to help rollout Gigabit speed broadband ISP connectivity to local homes and businesses. We’ve seen a similar anchor tenancy style model being used by Cityfibre to help deploy a Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network alongside UK ISP partner Vodafone (here).

Nick Forbes, Leader of Newcastle City Council, said:

“The North of Tyne region already boasts one of the fastest-growing technology sectors outside London and this is an amazing opportunity to expand that into the area’s more rural districts.

Right from the start of the North of Tyne’s journey, improving connectivity was one of the six priorities we established, and I’m delighted we’ve been able to reaffirm that commitment.

The Full Fibre Programme, together with private sector investment like the North-Atlantic loop, Stellium data centre and fibre loop in Newcastle city centre will ensure the North of Tyne area is at forefront of digital connectivity in the UK.”

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) is expected to reveal the outcome of NTCA’s bid by mid-July 2019.