Project Gigabit continues pace with £190m broadband build contracts

A £190m investment in Project Gigabit will see broadband provider Quickline Communications boost connectivity in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

The £5bn Project Gigabit programme was introduced in 2021 with the aim of accelerating the UK’s recovery from Covid-19, fire up high-growth sectors such as tech and the creative industries, and level up the country, spreading wealth and creating jobs across the country.

On its launch, the previous government said it would prioritise areas with slow connections that would otherwise be left behind in commercial broadband companies’ plans and give rural communities access to the fastest internet on the market, helping to grow the economy.

By April 2024, more than £1.3bn had already been invested in Project Gigabit contracts, resulting in nearly 82% of properties across the UK having access gigabit broadband, up from just 7% at the same time five years ago. This investment saw more than a million rural homes, businesses and public buildings upgraded to gigabit-capable networks.

Explaining the connectivity mission of the new government, digital infrastructure minister Chris Bryant said: “Accelerating the roll-out of fast broadband and modernising the country’s digital infrastructure is crucial to kickstarting an era of sustained economic growth in every part of the UK.

“Our £190m investment in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire will heal the headache of endless buffering felt by too many in rural communities, while building the infrastructure needed to attract new investment and ensure the benefits of digital technology reverberate across every corner of the country.”

East Riding of Yorkshire-based Quickline has won all four contracts that have bid for, making it the UK’s second largest Project Gigabit regional delivery partner and the only provider to be awarded a contract serving England’s largest county under the programme.

The firm’s two new contracts will see access to full-fibre gigabit broadband to around 108,000 homes and businesses in the East Riding of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (approximately 72,000 premises) and North Yorkshire (approximately 36,000 premises). As a result of the investment, Quickline will also expand its commercial network to a further 107,000 premises in these rural areas.

Work has already started to connect a further 60,000 funded premises in rural Yorkshire under two previously announced Quickline Project Gigabit contracts. The first of the two new contracts covers large areas of rural North Yorkshire, from around the seaside towns of Whitby and Scarborough, across to Knaresborough and onto Settle, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.

The second new contract covers the East Riding of Yorkshire and large parts of Lincolnshire, as well as North and North East Lincolnshire, and includes the rural communities of Holme upon Spalding Moor, Kilham and Easington in the East Riding of Yorkshire, as well as villages and hamlets down to Long Sutton in the Lincolnshire Fens, close to the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire borders.

Communities near Settle in North Yorkshire and North Kelsey in Lincolnshire will be among the first set to benefit from the availability of full-fibre network.

The new deals also bring the total public investment in full-fibre broadband delivered by Quickline to nearly £300m with public funding in all four contracts for gigabit broadband totalling almost 170,000 premises and some 360,000 rural homes and businesses, which Quickline said are in “dire need” of improved connectivity, when adding in associated commercial build.

“We are a regionally focused provider, and through our work as part of the Project Gigabit programme and beyond, we’re laser focused on delivering on our mission to connect rural communities to a world of possibilities when it comes to having access to fast and reliable broadband, and our desire to make a positive social impact and create economic growth for these rural areas,” said Quickline CEO Sean Royce.