Public consultation launched as Connecting Shropshire programme progresses

A Public Consultation process has now started on the Connecting Shropshire, and Shropshire Council  websites. The process will run for one calendar month up to Monday 5 September , 2016.

The Connecting Shropshire programme is striving to extend the availability of NGA (Next Generation Access) broadband infrastructure to meet the Government’s target for 95% of the UK to have access to superfast broadband speeds by the end of 2017.

To achieve this, Shropshire Council intends to procure further coverage of NGA broadband infrastructure (capable of delivering download speeds of at least 30 Mbps) in the Council area where such broadband is currently unavailable.

The key objective of the Connecting Shropshire Local Broadband Plan is to provide 100% coverage with NGA broadband infrastructure and for as many premises as possible to be able to have access to superfast broadband speeds.

Shropshire Council now intends to conduct a further open procurement for the remaining premises without NGA broadband infrastructure (known as “white NGA”), which comprises around 15,754 premises.

In July 2016, Shropshire Council conducted an Open Market review (OMR), consulting with prospective or current broadband infrastructure providers in the area, to establish any current and planned (next 3 years) commercial coverage of NGA services. The data gathered, in addition to the areas expected to be served through the Connecting Shropshire Phase 1 and Phase 2 deployment, have been used to redefine the scope of the eligible Intervention Area for the next stage of the programme.

We would encourage stakeholders to review the published data and respond to the process. For the avoidance of doubt, there is no need to respond to this public consultation if you have no comment to make.