Government cash boosts broadband rollout across rural Yorkshire

North Yorkshire gets the lion’s share of the cash - £17.8 million - with the rest shared between Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, Wakefield, Hull, the East Riding, North and North East Lincolnshire,

The money, announced by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, is part of the Government’s drive to ensure that 90% of homes and businesses have access to superfast broadband by 2015.

In all, English counties will get £294 million and Scotland £68.8 million to help the one-third of households that are not expected to have superfast broadband made available by the private sector.

County councils and private enterprise partnerships will be put in charge of broadband rollouts in their areas, and will be required to draw up delivery plans and find match-funding from elsewhere.

It will be up to the Scottish Government how to use the money in Scotland.

The allocations come out of £530 million committed by Chancellor George Osborne to improving broadband access over the course of the parliament.

The Government wants the UK to have the best superfast network in Europe by 2015.

Mr Hunt said: “Fast broadband is absolutely vital to our economic growth, to delivering public services effectively, and to conducting our everyday lives.

“But some areas of the UK are missing out, with many rural and hard-to-reach communities suffering painfully slow internet connections or no coverage at all.

“We are not prepared to let some parts of our country get left behind in the digital age.”

The Culture Secretary said councils and the Scottish Government had to “do their bit” to roll out broadband locally.

“I urge all those suffering the frustration of slow internet connections to make it clear to your local elected representatives that you expect them to do what is needed to access this investment and to deliver broadband to your community,” he added.