{"id":43564,"date":"2025-10-18T08:04:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T07:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=43564"},"modified":"2025-10-23T09:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:11:07","slug":"derbyshire-county-council-commits-900k-to-plug-rural-broadband-gaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2025\/10\/derbyshire-county-council-commits-900k-to-plug-rural-broadband-gaps.html","title":{"rendered":"Derbyshire County Council Commits \u00a3900k to Plug Rural Broadband Gaps UPDATE"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Derbyshire County Council<\/a> (DCC) in England has agreed to invest \u00a3900,000 to support the launch of two grant programmes, which will aim to improve broadband connectivity in at least some of the communities – predominantly rural ones – that are currently still expected to miss out on access to faster connections.<\/p>\n

At present UK ISP Connect Fibre<\/a> holds the main \u00a333m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit contract for Derbyshire (LOT 3), which will see them expanding their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP<\/a>) broadband network to serve an additional 17,000+ premises in hard-to-reach rural areas (i.e. communities such as Eckington, Hulland Ward, Shirley and many more).<\/p>\n

In addition, a second \u00a310.7m Project Gigabit contract for the Peak District was also held by network operator FullFibre Limited<\/a> (Fibre Heroes<\/a>), which would have covered 4,400 premises (including some in Derbyshire). Unfortunately, FullFibre Ltd pulled out of that contract back in May 2025 (here<\/a>), but even if both contracts had reached completion, then Derbyshire will still be left with a gap to fill.<\/p>\n

According to the DCC, around 32,000 premises (homes and businesses) across the county still receive broadband speeds of less than 100Mbps in areas with no prospect of commercial providers rolling out full fibre within the next 3 years. Of these, around 3,000 premises are still receiving very slow speeds of less than 10Mbps (the level of the Universal Service Obligation<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The county council’s cabinet have thus approved the use of \u00a3900k in funding “from our Digital Derbyshire reserves<\/em>” to set up 2 grant programmes to boost broadband speeds in premises with some of the poorest performing internet connections.<\/p>\n

Summary of the New Grant Schemes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The \u2018Gigabit Fibre Connectivity Grant<\/em>\u2019 will provide a full fibre network to clusters of \u2018hard to reach\u2019 premises which are close to one another.<\/p>\n

And the \u2018Interim Connectivity Grant<\/em>\u2019 will focus on providing short-term solutions, such as satellite<\/a> or mobile broadband, to properties which:<\/p>\n