MPs push for better broadband speeds

Devonians face connectivity cliff-edge

Efforts are being ramped up by Devon politicians to ensure thousands of homes have the opportunity to secure faster internet speeds so they don’t “risk being left behind”.

A joint letter co-signed by a host of Devon MPs and leaders of major organisations in the county has urged the government to ensure it has a rural strategy for improving broadband once a current scheme comes to an end.

And it suggests Devon acting as a national testbed for potential solutions and technologies to ensure the most hard-to-reach homes have acceptable broadband speeds.

The letter, written by Devon County Council’s cabinet member for rural affairs and broadband, Councillor Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin (Liberal Democrat, Torrington Rural), and the South Devon MP, Caroline Voaden (Liberal Democrat), raises the fear that thousands of homes could be left without an avenue to secure better broadband, or in some cases, a connection at all.

While a voucher scheme to support broadband improvement and linked to the national Project Gigabit has relaunched, it will end in early 2028, after which Cllr Cottle-Hunkin and Ms Voaden state “there will be no national programme supporting rural connectivity in rural areas, leaving many hard-to-reach premises with no hope of improved connectivity”.

“At a time when the national target of 99 per cent gigabit connectivity is reached, there will be a higher percentage of properties failing into the remaining 1 per cent in Devon, where we estimate this will be closer to 7 per cent, or roughly 44,000 homes.”

The Gigabit Project Voucher Scheme was supposed to end last year, but has been extended. It aims to provide grants towards the cost of faster broadband connections where larger commercial suppliers are unlikely to operate.

The letter from Cllr Cottle-Hunkin and Ms Voaden also stressed that rural residents arguably have greater need for digital connectivity, especially given the closure of physical banks and Post Office branches in rural Devon and the shift to online services.

Also, the pair stated that, perversely, Project Gigabit was actually making the gap between the have and have-nots even wider.

“In Devon, the reality is that the vast majority of Project Gigabit funding is uplifting premises with reasonable connectivity to gigabit speeds at the expense of more rural premises with the slowest speeds and the greatest need,” the pair state in their letter.

“Specifically, 90 per cent of Project Gigabit delivery in Devon will cover premises already at superfast speeds, with only 10 per cent addressing those below 30 megabytes per second (Mbps).

“This national investment is therefore widening the rural digital divide, not closing it.”

It added there were “no further plans” to address the significant number of rural homes and businesses with low speeds, and estimated 35,000 premises with speeds below 30 Mbps with “no commercial solution or investment from Project Gigabit”.

“At present, Building Digital UK has no mandate to even begin to address this challenge since it is a delivery body, charged with delivering against government policy,” the letter added.

“In the continuing absence of any government policy on the Very Hard to Reach Premises, there can be no budgetary allocation and thus no delivery plan.”

The pair then asked for a meeting to discuss a range of topics, including the importance of  national strategy for the very hard to reach premises, and for Devon to act as a “national location to test, trial or pilot solutions, technologies and models for delivery of rural broadband solutions”.

Among the other signatories were Edwina Bradshaw, independent chair of Citizens Advice Devon, Andrea Davis, chair of Exmoor National Park, and Will Dracup, chairman of Dartmoor National Park.

Six other Devon MPs also signed the letter, including Lib Dem members Richard Foord (Honiton & Sidmouth) and Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton & Minehead) and Conservative member for South West Devon, Rebecca Smith.