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North Yorkshire County Council approves a further £3 million for Superfast Broadband scheme

Members of North Yorkshire County Council’s Executive this morning formally approved a further £3m in funding to the Superfast North Yorkshire (SFNY) programme.

It matches £3m offered by the Government’s Broadband UK initiative, and a further £2m from the European Regional Development Fund. In addition, the Superfast North Yorkshire contractor, BT, will add a further £2m.

County councillor Carl Les, the chairman of the SFNY programme and deputy leader of the County Council said: “This is a massive step forward in our aim to establish high speed broadband accessibility for 100% of North Yorkshire by the end of 2017.”

“WIth this extra funding, we will be able to penetrate to the more remote parts of our very rural county, to communities and businesses which hitherto had little hope of reaping the advantages and rewards of high speed internet access.”

The SFNY programme is already on target to complete its initial phase, offering high quality broadband connections to almost 90% of properties, by the end of October 2014.

The project, funded by the Government’s BDUK programme, the European Regional Development Fund, North Yorkshire County Council, and BT, has switched on almost 400 fibre-broadband cabinets across the county since its launch last year.

Newly developed technology, including small cabinets capable of being attached to telegraph poles, will allow the SFNY team to penetrate the more remote parts of the county.

“Access to high speed broadband is vitally important to the economic prosperity of the county, and this new funding means we will be able to ensure that it is virtually universally accessible. Further funding is available and will be released once the impact of this latest £8m has been assessed.” added councillor Les.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .