£1.5 million Kent County Council fund launched for rural broadband

Rural communities who suffer from slow broadband will now be able to bid for funding to bring them up to speed. Kent County Council has announced a £1.5 million Superfast Broadband Pilot Fund to help rural communities benefit from high speed broadband.

This money is available to community groups, parish councils or local authorities. All applications must have a sound business case and show the economic benefits of fast broadband and must be submitted by 14 April 2011.

The applications will then be prioritised and carefully scrutinised to make sure they meet the criteria. Successful bids could receive a maximum amount of funding of £100,000.

The Superfast Broadband Pilot Fund is not the only money available for communities. Since 2006, KCC has administered a separate community broadband grant. So far, 17 parishes have received more than £600,000 to help install new broadband.

Community groups will be able to apply for both grants on the www.kent.gov.uk/broadband website or an application form can be obtained by calling the KCC contact centre on 08458 247247.

Superfast Broadband Pilot Fund

The deadline for receipt of the full application/business case is 12pm 14 April 2011. Successful bids can get up to £100,000.

Announcements of the first successful round of applications will be made in mid May 2011.

Community broadband grant

The deadline for receipt of community broadband business cases is 31 March 2011. The grants are for a maximum of £50,000 and it is expected that up to six grants will be issued to successful communities in 2011-2012. The successful bids will be announced around the end of April 2011.