Darwen Gets GBP5.5m Investment to Boost Ultrafast Broadband

The Blackburn with Darwen Council has confirmed that they plan to commit £5.5 million from a new £90m development programme to help the Lancashire (England) town of Darwen upgrade thousands of premises to “ultrafast broadband” and deploy a new WiFi network across the town centre.

The council states that the ‘Connected Darwen‘ part of this proposal – partly funded by a slice of £25m from the UK Government’s Towns Fund (details) – will bring ultrafast broadband to more than 10,000 premises (homes and businesses) in the town, with free Wi-Fi also being provided for “town centre users and low income households.”

The press release, which is extremely vague, talks about a figure of £5.5m being committed for the Connected Darwen project itself, which in the council’s documents is said to comprise £1,820,000 in capital funding from the local authority and £3,750,000 from “co-funding” via the private sector.

Councillor Phil Riley said:

“This is more investment in Darwen than we’ve seen in our lifetimes.

The Town Deal Funding, which the board worked so hard to secure, is acting as a catalyst for significant investment in the town, including £13.8m which we’ve committed as a council.

There’s no doubt that the £90m is a life-changing sum of money and residents and businesses are going to see real change – to the town and in the opportunities for growth and jobs.

It really does feel like the start of something special for Darwen and its future and we’re looking forward to working really hard as a board and council to make sure we make the most of the opportunities.”

Project delivery on this is expected to begin in late 2022, once the Government has had a chance to review the Board’s business case submissions (that phase is expected to occur later this summer).