Rolling out broadband in Kent

With Bill Murphy of BT this morning

This morning - wearing my KCC Cabinet Member's rather than my Darent Valley hat - I was interviewed on Radio Kent about our agreement with BT to roll out broadband across Kent and Medway.

The agreement is under the auspices of a national programme run by the government agency Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK). The aim is to cover the roughly one-third of Kent and Medway properties that will not get access to decent broadband any time soon without some sort of financial intervention. KCC is putting in £10m, BDUK £9.87m and BT £19.6m. The target of the government programme is that, in any given area (such as Kent and Medway) around 90% of properties should get superfast broadband (defined as download speeds of 24mbps or faster) and that the remaining 10% - by definition the hardest and most expensive to reach properties - should have access to minimum download speeds of 2mbps.

Kent is among the first counties in the country to sign a BDUK agreement, and our deal is a little better than this. At least 91% of properties should get superfast broadband, and at least a further 4% should get access to quite high-speed fibre connections. The precise outcome has to await survey work.

The agreement is signed today. Survey work should start next, the first services should be available in 2014 and the project should be complete by the end of 2015.

This is an excellent outcome for our county, a step change in taking up the opportunities that broadband gives us - as businesses, families, communities and individuals. For new, growing and smaller businesses, especially in rural areas (and some 40% of Kent businesses are rural) it is absolutely essential. That we have got to where we are is a tribute to the 18,000 businesses and individuals who signed up to our Make Kent Quicker Campaign. It's also a tribute to some tremendous staff at KCC who have worked enormously hard through a long and complex process to make this happen. And it is, now, happening.

You can find KCC's press release and a related video here.