Project Gigabit: more than half of rural Yorkshire fitted with high-speed broadband
More than half of the rural parts of Yorkshire and the Humber with slow internet speeds have now been connected up to high-speed broadband through the Government’s Project Gigabit programme.
This will make sure that every country home and business house in England has Gigabit broadband by 2032.
UK Telecoms Minister, Ian Murray, was at Quickline in Hull yesterday to announce that more than 3,000 jobs have been created through the project, including almost 500 apprenticeships.
“Public procurement, in terms of taxpayer funding, can not only go into big public infrastructure projects, but also have a lot of social value in terms of delivering jobs for young people,” he told The Yorkshire Post.
Mr Murray had been meeting apprentices in Hull who had gained employment through the scheme.
After joining Quickline’s first engineering apprenticeship cohort in October 2024, Mohammed Ameen secured a permanent role as fibre installation engineer within six months.
He’s been joined by Ryan Lupton, a splicer apprentice, who said: “My previous occupation was a customer assistant for Tesco, which mainly involved working on self-service.
“I’m excited to be working for Quickline and look forward to hopefully having a career with them. I’m enjoying the physical nature of the job.
“I am one who doesn’t like to be sat around all day and working with the lads always makes the job fun.”
Mr Murray said: “They are born and bred in the region but they didn’t feel as if there were opportunities for them to stay here.”
“A huge variety of backgrounds, but in essence shows you that when people are trying to find the opportunities you need to have them on your doorstep for them to stay and for them to live where they were brought up.
“The Prime Minister often talks about growth in every postcode, and the reason is, yes it’s good for the economy, but you’ve got to provide those opportunities on people’s doorsteps.”