Full fibre broadband targets for Northamptonshire ‘challenging but achievable’

Northamptonshire was one of the first county councils to set itself targets for full-fibre broadband and gigabit-capable broadband.

The council is aiming for the 40 per cent target, and with three years left there 15 per cent of that target has been delivered. The figure is substantially higher however than the 2015 numbers, which stood at a mere 0.4 per cent.

In the same timeframe, the county is also attempting to get 75 per cent of premises having access to gigabit-capable broadband (providing a gigabit per second), but this appears to be a harder challenge to pull off with only 15 per cent achieved so far.

Targets for March 2021 however are very much on track, with Superfast Northamptonshire – the project delivering the service – having already completed or on the verge of meetings its objectives for the delivery of superfast and ultrafast broadband.

Current coverage for superfast broadband (30Mbit/s) across the county stands at 98.5 per cent, just 0.5 per cent behind the target needed by March, and with the target of 65 per cent of ultrafast broadband (300Mbit/s) already standing at more than 70 per cent.

The targets were discussed at a meeting of the South Northamptonshire Council scrutiny committee, with the aim of examining how the district compares with its neighbours in Northampton and Daventry.

With 22.9 per cent of full fibre coverage achieved, South Northants was only slightly behind Daventry (26.7 per cent) but significantly ahead of Northampton (10.3 per cent).

Ian Achurch, head of external funding and partnerships at Northamptonshire County Council, told the committee: “Where we’re aiming to be is fibre all the way through. We were one of the first areas to have full-fibre coverage targets and we wanted to show the Government we have ambitions and looking further ahead we want to be part of the Government’s £5bn Outside In programme – which is aiming to reach the hardest to reach premises. So we set these targets, and while we’re at 15 per cent now we’re increasing rapidly.”