The Superfast Broadband Programme:
The Connecting Solihull and Warwickshire (CSW) Broadband Project was established in 2012 as part of the government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) Superfast Broadband Programme.
Funded through contributions from Central Government, the region’s local authorities, the EU and our build partner Openreach, the aim of the project was to extend the roll-out of superfast broadband across areas of the region where commercial providers had no plans to do so.
The CSW Broadband Project – for which Warwickshire County Council was the lead partner – was an outstanding success. Via the three Superfast Broadband contracts that we delivered working with Openreach, CSW was able to connect more than 78,000 residential and business properties to the fibre network across Solihull and Warwickshire.
In Warwickshire alone, over 72,000 premises – more than 20% of all properties across the county were upgraded to superfast speeds of 30Mbps and above as a result of CSW’s intervention.
In our two most rural Districts and Boroughs, CSW’s broadband deployments significantly helped to increase superfast coverage from 45.4% to 97.8% in Stratford District and from 48.4% to 98.2% in North Warwickshire.
By the time that the Contract 3 build programme had been completed in January 2024, CSW had helped Warwickshire to achieve 98.6% superfast coverage – easily surpassing the target of 98% originally set by BDUK.
Through our provision of a high quality wholesale broadband network, CSW also ensured that a wide range of ISPs were able to offer superfast broadband services, thus increasing consumer choice and helping to ensure that prices for those services remained competitive.
Partly as a result of this and the many benefits that faster connectivity can bring to residents and businesses, over 80% of all properties that were upgraded by CSW through the Superfast Broadband Programme have now taken up an improved broadband service.
The team is now working on a variety of other projects to facilitate the delivery of gigabit-capable connectivity across Warwickshire, including Project Gigabit.
Local Full Fibre Networks programme:
In 2018, the government awarded the CSW Broadband Project a sum of nearly £3.9 million to bring full fibre gigabit connectivity to public sector buildings across Warwickshire through the Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme.
Following a transparent, fair and robust procurement process, the contract to deliver the LFFN programme in Warwickshire was awarded to Openreach in the summer of 2019 with the network build starting in the summer of 2020.
Of the 220 public sector sites benefiting from the delivery of lightning-fast, ultra-reliable broadband connectivity through the LFFN scheme, 159 were schools, including 138 primary schools, 12 secondary school, 5 nursery schools and 4 community special schools.
The other 61 sites that were also upgraded to a full fibre broadband connection through the programme, included a total of 19 libraries, 12 fire stations, 5 hospitals, 5 social services buildings, 4 county council or district council offices, 3 community centres, 2 registry offices, 2 museums and a justice centre.
By the time that the LFFN programme was completed in February 2022, nearly 1,000 residential and business properties in close proximity to these sites were also able to take advantage of having a state of the art, full fibre connection as a result of our work.