HIGH speed fibre broadband will be rolled out to 96 per cent of Cheshire homes and businesses in the next three years after a £28.5m project was signed between Cheshire’s four councils and BT.

The Connecting Cheshire Partnership has secured funding to provide additional rural broadband infrastructure to more than 80,000 premises that will build on BT’s on-going commercial investment in fibre across the county.

As a result more than 400,000 premises – around 96 per cent – across Cheshire should have access to broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps by the end of 2016.

Those premises in the remaining four per cent that currently experience low speeds will also see an uplift, as the project aims to deliver a minimum of 2Mbps or more to almost all homes and businesses.

The project will transform broadband speeds across Cheshire, narrowing the gap between speeds in urban and rural areas.

BT was awarded the contract following a procurement exercise through the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK framework.

The company is contributing £9m towards fibre deployment in ‘non-commercial’ areas, while the Connecting Cheshire Partnership is contributing £1.85m, with a further £4m coming from the Government’s BDUK funds and £13.6m from European Regional Development Funds.

Openreach, BT’s local network division, will surveying locations around the county and analysing the best way to roll out the network.

This initial survey work will take eight months, so Connecting Cheshire should be in a position to announce which communities will be included in the first stage of the roll-out by December 2013.

Clr Herbert Manley, Cheshire West and Cheshire Council’s Executive Member for Prosperity, said: “This will be a wonderful boost for Cheshire’s economy, creating wealth and jobs in rural areas as well as urban towns. It will help people wanting to set up their own businesses get off to a flying start and help small and medium businesses innovate and benefit from cutting edge technologies.

“It is also good news for all our residents giving their homes access to super fast broadband and offering massive improvements to ecommerce, home entertainment and social media.”

Tatton MP George Osborne added: “This is great news for not just my Tatton constituency but the whole of Cheshire. Extending the reach of fibre broadband is a real opportunity to provide a huge strategic boost to our urban and rural areas, for both homes and businesses to become better connected.”

Bill Murphy, managing director of BT Next Generation Access, added: “Cheshire has a large number of small and medium sized enterprises and a high volume of business start-ups, which collectively contribute a substantial proportion of the regional economy.

“The rollout of more fibre broadband will act as a powerful economic driver for these businesses.”