A county council cabinet member says \u201cit is completely unacceptable\u201d Kent has yet to see benefits of a government roll-out of superfast internet to rural homes and businesses.<\/p>\n
In a strongly-worded letter to Sir Chris Bryant, Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, Reform cabinet member Paul King says it is yet to be informed of any properties being connected after a \u00a3112m contract for the county was awarded in January 2024.<\/p>\n
KCC has written to Sir Chris Bryant about Kent\u2019s gigabit roll-out<\/p>\n
And it says while that deal should eventually connect 50,000 homes and businesses with speeds of up to one gigabit, a further 100,000 are also in need of better online speeds.<\/p>\n
But it claims the government-sponsored agency Building Digital UK – responsible for the roll-out – has informed it Kent \u201cis not a priority\u201d for \u201cfurther investment\u201d in what is known as Project Gigabit.<\/p>\n
Paul King, cabinet member for economic development and coastal regeneration at KCC, wrote to the minister saying: \u201cGood broadband connectivity is essential to enable any business to thrive and for residents to access the services and opportunities they need.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand the complexities and challenges involved in building broadband infrastructure in hard-to-reach areas but it is difficult to understand why it is taking so long for these much-needed connections to be delivered at the pace required.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is now over three years since the procurement work for the Kent phase of the Project Gigabit contract started\u2026and we have yet to see the announcement by Building Digital UK of any properties connected.\u201d<\/p>\n
The roll-out of super-fast broadband in Kent is behind schedule says the authority – but the government disagrees<\/p>\n
He added that, in contrast, KCC had \u201cprocured, mobilised and delivered the first superfast broadband contract, connecting over 123,000 premises within 3.5 years\u201d.<\/p>\n
Building Digital UK (BDUK) penned a \u00a3112m deal with telecommunications firm CityFibre in January 2024 to connect 50,000 properties.<\/p>\n
But the KCC cabinet member added: \u201cFrom the surveys BDUK has undertaken, it would appear a further 100,000 are not in any build plans and an additional 250,000 have been classed as being in telecoms build plans that may be at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are large numbers and mean that, at best, the existing BDUK contract will only connect around a third of premises that are without a connection.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, a spokesperson for the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, said the vast majority of Kent already had good access to high-speed internet and that it was in regular contact with KCC and its delivery partner on the progress of the scheme.<\/p>\n
Reform KCC councillor Paul King<\/p>\n
A DSIT spokesperson said: “Some 82% of premises in Kent already have access to gigabit-capable broadband, and this roll-out, now underway. will extend that connectivity to over 50,000 additional premises, which would otherwise be left behind with outdated internet networks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to keep Kent County Council informed as rollout accelerates across the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cProject Gigabit is bringing lightning-fast broadband to hard-to-reach properties across Kent as part of a \u00a3119 million government investment to transform the county’s connectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is understood the rollout with CityFibre has been expanded to a further 3,668 premises backed by a further \u00a37.2m government investment.<\/p>\n
There are also plans to host a customer event in Kent for those likely to benefit from the higher speeds which, the government adds, KCC has been informed of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A county council cabinet member says \u201cit is completely unacceptable\u201d Kent has yet to see benefits of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[84,1638,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-111127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-internet","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}