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All but two councils submit broadband funding proposals to government

North and South Tyneside slammed by Jeremy Hunt for lack of interest

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The government has confirmed that all but two local authorities in England have submitted broadband funding plans to the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUL) project that aims to ensure 90 per cent of the population can access superfast broadband by 2015.

The only two councils that have not submitted any funding requests are South and North Tyneside.

Culture minister Jeremy Hunt criticised the councils, warning that failure to provide superfast broadband to residents could cost the regions dear.

"North and South Tyneside seem blithely confident they will deliver world class digital infrastructure - I just hope they are not being complacent," he warned.

"No one in the UK can afford to slack on making sure we have the best broadband network in Europe upon which so many of the jobs of the future depend."

V3 contacted North Tyneside council for information on why it had not requested its funding, and was pointed to a prior statement from January that claimed the region was already ahead of schedule for such rollouts.

It said it was offered £880,000 from the government that would have required matching funding from its own finances.

It added that by working with BT, it is confident 91 per cent of properties will have high-speed services by 2015, with the remaining nine per cent on at least 2Mbit/s as well.

"Given the pressures on resources at the present time, we felt that the benefits of increasing the coverage of superfast broadband across the remaining nine per cent of the borough would be limited, and therefore a low priority when deciding how best to spend council taxpayers money," added elected mayor for North Tyneside, Linda Arkley.

South Tyneside had not responded to a request for comment from V3 at the time of publication.

In spite of the two councils refusal to get involved in the scheme, Hunt said he was pleased with the "fast progress" other councils had shown, but he warned local authorities this was just the first stage in the process.

"We cannot afford to relax - we must continue to drive forward with taking superfast broadband to all areas of the UK," he added.

The government also confirmed that a further five funding proposals submitted by councils have been approved, so that 40 per cent of councils can now push ahead with procurement of the services needed to deliver their plans.

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