April 12, 2011 4.16 pm This story is over 155 months old

County Council in £20m broadband bid

Internet funding: The council is trying to secure more money for better broadband in the county.

Lincolnshire County Council will find out this autumn whether its bid for up to £20 million for improving broadband in the county is successful.

The cash would come from Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), which is a government project aiming to entice internet providers into rural areas.

BDUK has been set the task of helping to deploy “super-fast” broadband services throughout most of the country by 2015 with £530 million funds.

Justin Brown, the Head of Economic Regeneration Policy at the County Council said the bid for the funding is being prepared for submission in June.

“The government’s new BDUK budget provides a good opportunity for us to attract funding to help over come broadband access problems in rural areas.

“We will make our bid in late June, and will spend the time between now and then putting together the strongest possible case for Lincolnshire.

“This will include statistics, and supporting letters from businesses, communities, and politicians.

“We expect to hear if the bid has been successful in the autumn.”

The government hopes everyone in the UK will have access to speeds of 2Mbps by 2012.

Lincolnshire County Council also run the Onlincolnshire project*, which aims to encourage commercial suppliers invest fast broadband infrastructure in the county.

Separately from the BDUK bid, BT announced that five more exchanges for super-fast broadband will be set live across Lincolnshire.

The exchanges are in Birchwood, Market Deeping, Sudbrooke Park, Wasingborough and Stamford.

However, due to the current network topography, it is likely that some of the premises within the selected exchange areas will not be able to be served by this technology in the short term.

*Disclosure: Stonebow Media, the publishers of The Lincolnite, are collaborating with the Onlincolnshire project to provide broadband news content for the site.
Related Report: BBC Lincolnshire | Photo: Kirk Lau