Access to rural-broadband funding plagued by delays

The government has been accused of dragging its feet over a rural-broadband funding scheme that expires on Wednesday but still has many open applications awaiting approval.

Changes to rural-broadband vouchers mean some areas will be ineligible for a new version of the scheme in April.

More than a million homes could be affected, industry sources say.

But the government says no areas “will miss out”, because they will be covered by other broadband projects.

Several days
The vouchers, worth thousands of pounds per home, cover the cost of running cables to remote towns and villages.

But as of Friday, hundreds of towns and other rural communities had applications still awaiting government approval to allow network operators to issue them.

This itself could take several days.

And some have taken community groups months of work.

Most remote
James Sherwin-Smith, who, having been in touch with officials since September, finally had his application for the village of Furnace Wood, West Sussex, approved on Friday evening, said the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) was “either inept, ill prepared, or trying to manage their budget”.

The government says most are approved within a month – but there can be a delay if information is missing or more details are required.

The new version of the scheme focuses more on the most remote “area-three” parts of the country.

But many of the outstanding applications cover “area-two” premises.

Agencies