Council's £900k project to improve rural broadband

Derbyshire County Council has created two grant programmes using Digital Derbyshire funding to improve broadband

Broadband speeds for residents in rural areas of Derbyshire will be given a boost from a £900,000 project.

Derbyshire County Council announced on Thursday two grant programmes using Digital Derbyshire funding to improve broadband where speeds are slower.

About 32,000 homes and businesses receive less than 100 megabits per second in areas with no prospect of full fibre broadband within the next three years, the council said.

The council's cabinet member for net zero and environment, Carol Wood, said: "By launching these two grant programmes, we can help improve broadband speeds for lots of local people and help prevent rural communities from falling behind in the digital divide."

The grants will provide a full fibre network to areas of "hard to reach" premises and provide short-term solutions to remote areas where a fixed full fibre network is too expensive and no commercial roll-out is planned, the council added.