Ambitious project to build a broadband future in Shropshire

The Connecting Shropshire project is a joint venture between Shropshire Council and BT to bring a broadband service to every corner of the county by the end of spring 2016.

BT is contributing £8.6m towards improving broadband coverage in ‘non-commercial’ areas, while Shropshire Council is contributing £8.2m, with £7.84m coming from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds.

The aim is to see 93% of premises across Shropshire – more than 130,000 premises – getting access to broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps by the end of spring 2016. In addition, the contract includes a commitment to deliver a minimum speed of 2Mbps to all premises in the project area.

An event was held in Shrewsbury on Friday to explain to people from community organisations, businesses, and town and parish councils how the project will work.

Representatives from BT, Shropshire Council and BDUK spoke about the huge engineering challenge involved with getting broadband to the more rural parts of Shropshire, as well as highlighting the benefits that faster broadband can bring.

Keith Barrow, Shropshire Council’s Leader, said:

“I think everyone is excited about the potential of getting faster broadband, and there is a natural tendency for people to see improvements straight away. However, it’s important to understand what a huge undertaking it is to install cables in all of our rural areas, and we were grateful to have BT experts on hand to explain the engineering feat that’s involved.”

Brendan Dick, managing director of the BT Regions team, said:

“During the next three years we’ll be rolling out enough fibre to connect Shropshire to the Swiss Alps. This is a physically and technically challenging project. I was delighted to be there last Friday sharing some insights on how we approach fibre deployment, and what work is already underway.”