Government confirms Broadband Money
The Government has confirmed that North Yorkshire and York is to receive £17,840,000 to improve broadband access in the County.
This is part of £530 million of Government investment to ensure that the UK has the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015, with 90 per cent of homes and businesses having access to superfast broadband and for everyone in the UK to have access to at least 2Mbps.
Julian Smith, Member of Parliament for Skipton and Ripon, said:
“I am pleased that these figures confirm the Government recognise the pressing need in North Yorkshire to improve broadband access and reduce the digital divide. Too many of our communities currently cannot go online at decent speeds and the allocation of money to the County being among the highest in England acknowledges this.
“North Yorkshire is leading the way in working to get better internet connections. The County Council has already begun inviting companies to submit bids to roll-out superfast broadband in the coming year and every North Yorkshire Member of Parliament has been working hard to ensure our part of the world is one of the first to benefit from the investment, jobs and lifestyle improvements having high quality internet links can bring.”
Read the announcement from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport >>
broadbandnorthyorkshire 
well done team
Living in a rural village in N. Yorks. I hope the money will not be spent in the urban areas, but a large proportion in the rural locations where speeds are below 2mbps as in my village
This is great news. Let’s hope the momentum continues to build so that we can celebrate rural communities such as ours in Appletreewick and Skyreholme linking up with others in Darley and Blubberhouses to share high speed broadband connections.
Wouldn’t it be great if at next years conference we could stand up and show the UK that “We did it!!”
I hope that the money is used to connect the outline villages like Stainforth and not used to connect larger towns like Settle or Skipton. Crashing computers is very frustrating, We have currently 1.27 Mbps here. Its all too slow and the service is too expensive for what we get.
Echoing Adrian’s comment, this is very good news for North Yorkshire IF the funding concerned goes to help local residents and business get connected to superfast broadband more quickly.
The great work raising the demand level in Darley, as simple one fine example, has persuaded NextGenUs to invest directly in providing superfast FiWi broadband without requiring any subsidy therefore making those precious funds available for other communities, unless NYCC wishes to help accelerate the uptake of service by helping make the installation cost more affordable.
NextGenUs is happy to treat any such community support as a repayable loan rather than a grant, so that NYCC can reuse and recycle the funds available over time to benefit many times more communities rather than favour a small number of communities over the majority of North Yorkshire rural residents and businesses.
The best way to ensure value for what is a small though helpful amount of taxpayers money is to use SBV, Superfast Broadband Vouchers, that reward results not promises and help to make the installation cost of service more affordable.
This funding mechanism is already operating at a parish council level in Lincolnshire (as well as Wales and France) today and is open to any provider, BT included, who is prepared to step up and invest its own money to provide service rather than wait around with a begging bowl for taxpayers money.
NextGenUs and other innovative providers are already pushing ahead with providing better broadband across North Yorkshire without seeking or wanting any upfront handouts.
Exciting times ahead for the county for sure!
This will make a huge difference to larger businesses or business that have outgrown their location being able to invest in our rural economy
Let us get some joined up thinking. Levisham is due to have the electricity cables laid underground rather than over head. Let’s take the opportunity and ensure that while someone is digging trenches and laying cables to every property in the village we include fibre optic cable (FITH – fibre into the home; and the village hall by the way). Then one additional link is require to the NYnet already being promoted to give everyone superfasdt broadband. That should not cost a disproportinate share of £18m.