Norfolk County Council Aim for 100% Internet Access

Norfolk considers borrowing £11million to bring superfast broadband to 100% of premises as soon as possible.

15:26 05 March 2018

The Norfolk County Council is set to make a decision in regards to the extension of their Better Broadband for Norfolk (BBfN) project. At present, the project is set to reach 90per cent of the country while a second extension contract is currently working to reach 95per cent by 2020.  

 

Plans are now being drawn to ensure that the final 5per cent of the population will also get access to superfast broadband. The local authority has proposed a new contract, which would be supported by a combination of funding from the DEFRA Rural Broadband Grant (Norfolk will bid for £2million) and reinvestment of £11.1million in existing funding.

 

But since the £11.1million won’t officially become available to use until 2023, the council has suggested that it could borrow the money instead. This has to be done as soon as possible as the £2million bid from DEFRA has to be spent by the end of March 2020.

 

If everything goes through as planned, the council plans to award the contract to one single supplier for the phase 3 of the project.