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Project Gigabit: Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe

Asked by David ChadwickLiberal DemocratDepartment for Science, Innovation and TechnologyTabled Answered 17 January 2025UIN 22837

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how much and what proportion of (a) Project Gigabit funding has been (i) spent on and (ii) allocated for and (b) additional funding announced in the press notice entitled Hundreds of thousands of Brits in rural villages and towns to benefit from UK government broadband boost, published on 7 January 2025, has been allocated for projects in Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe constituency.

Answered by Chris Bryant

Project Gigabit funding is not allocated at a constituency or regional level. Instead, it is targeted at premises across the UK that need it most, specifically those outside of suppliers' commercial plans.

The latest Project Gigabit contracts announced on 7 January 2025 do not cover Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe as eligible premises in the constituency have already been included in an earlier Project Gigabit contract with Openreach. This contract is currently expected to deliver gigabit-capable connections to approximately 3,600 premises in the constituency.

To date, over £1 million in public subsidy has been spent in the Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe constituency through the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and its previous iterations, passing nearly 800 premises with gigabit-capable broadband. This includes top-up funding from Welsh Government. Additionally, almost 6,700 premises across the constituency have received a gigabit-capable connection through the government’s Superfast and GigaHubs programmes. We do not hold constituency-level data of spend for these schemes.

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