Gloucestershire and Herefordshire councils will each contribute £300,000 to kick start the rollout of super-fast broadband in the West Country counties.

The local authorities have stumped up the cash to get the initiative underway, with the trial expected to attract investment of up to £12 million from broadband providers and the government.

Under the scheme, parts of Herefordshire, Gloucester and Tewkesbury, plus 80 per cent of the Forest of Dean, will be included in a project to test high-speed web access after the councils lodged a successful bid with Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK).

Councillor Chas Fellows, cabinet member for economy and environment at Gloucestershire County Council, said: "Accessible fast broadband is seen as an increasingly important element of infrastructure for both business and the wider community."

Experts have tipped next generation broadband to be a major contributor to the success of local firms, he added.

Herefordshire was also chosen as one of BDUK's first super-fast broadband trial areas, along with Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Scotland's Highlands and Islands.

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Comments (2)

19th August 2009

There was so much publicity when this was announced at the beginning of July, both on the Internet and in the local press. Trouble is, a month and a half down the line and despite having entered about a hundred different Whitchurch (SY13 xxx) postcodes onto Virgin's web site, it always says there is no fibre service available in the area and offers only traditional broadband. I've made several phone calls to Virgin about this asking exactly where in Whitchurch (only a small market town) this service is actually available, only to be promised a call back that never materialises.

05th July 2009

The phrase "Up to" is being used again, so we don't really know what we will get if we go for this option. It says Virgin are laying a Fibre optical line into Whitchurch, but doesn't say how it will get to the users. Will it be via the phone lines using ADSL or will they be laying a cable TV style network to deliver it direct to our homes?