South Gloucestershire Council

Published: 15/07/2016

South Gloucestershire Council and BT today confirmed that more than 2,000 additional homes and businesses across South Gloucestershire are to benefit from access to faster fibre broadband.

Thanks to an additional £1.49m investment, the rollout will be extended to even more communities across South Gloucestershire who will be able to take advantage of superfast fibre broadband.

Surveys will be undertaken to confirm exactly where the work will be carried out. Villages likely to benefit* from the additional investment include: Tytherington, Dyrham, Hinton, Littteton-Upon-Severn, Oldbury-on-Severn, Cromhall, Elberton, Codrington and Little Sodbury.

The partnership between South Gloucestershire Council, BDUK and BT has already made faster fibre broadband available to over 18,000 homes and businesses across the district since it began in 2013. This latest investment will take superfast broadband coverage from 93 per cent to 95 per cent coverage across the region by the end of 2017.

Welcoming today’s announcement, Councillor John Goddard, Chair of Resources Sub-Committee, said: “More than 2,000 homes and businesses are set to benefit from the latest investment in the rollout of broadband and I’m pleased to say that most of the areas which will now be surveyed are in some of our more rural village locations in South Gloucestershire.”

Matt Lloyd, BT’s programme manager, said: “This extension is great news for those communities in South Gloucestershire that previously would have missed out.

“Superfast broadband has a huge impact on the way we live. It helps business to move, act and trade quickly and effectively. It enables school children to access their homework online, as well as offering better access to e-commerce, social media and home entertainment. For all of these things, fast broadband is essential.”

This latest investment is from a range of sources including savings from the first phase of the rollout, investment from BT triggered by high take up of the service and additional funding that the council has secured through the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme and the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership.

People can use the Openreach Checker by simply entering their postcode or telephone number to get an update on the progress of fibre broadband availability in their area.

Subject to further approval from Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) within central government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport.